Life As It Goes By

When I heard the news of Oracle suing Google over some Intellectual Property rights for the Android’s Java Virtual Machine, namely Dalvik, I was shocked and enraged. I could not prevent my hatred for Oracle from growing. It was a sad day for the open source industry though it had long begun with the acquisition of Sun Microsystems. On the surface, the takeover seemed to be aimed at the server hardware (Sparc) and its accompanying software, Unix-based Solaris (another open source operating system). But the fact that Sun Microsystems is a major contributor of open source software ranging from programming language, Java (created with the noble idea of portability and distributed as free as it promised to be: it’s compiler is freely available until recently when Oracle requires you to register in order to perform a download), office application bundle, OpenOffice, virtualization software (which allows you to install different operating systems on 1 host operating system), VirtualBox to database software, MySQL, Oracle’s newly added possession had provided itself a dimension in the software industry.

Of course, Oracle did not start off selling software for free. It almost monopolized or rather dominated the database industry for a length of time that was or is still sufficient for it to accumulate great wealth and resources. It then tried to adapt to the changing face of the industry. The attack of Linux was too huge to be ignored. Oracle quickly ported its key product to Linux and due to Linux’s licensing policy, Oracle was forced to open up some of the sources and labeled them as open source software. However, it was a gamble that paid off (the use of Linux in servers increased) and hence strengthening Oracle’s belief in open source.

Personally, I always have felt that the future of database is a rather bleak one. I mean, the idea of database itself is no longer new. I used to study database systems in school and learnt there are basically 3 types of database: relational, object-oriented and hybrid (both relational and object-oriented). I can’t deny that there are ongoing activities on how to improve the speed of data access (maybe via better indexing), the reliability of data storage and retrieval, and management of ever increasing data size. The point is what you can do or enhance are pretty much trapped within the box.

For this reason, I could empathize Oracle’s continuous, aggressive moves in the takeover business. In one sense, it seems Oracle has given up developing their own products or making new product innovations. It just relied the acquired businesses to boost its revenues and tapped on their technological talents to create products of the tomorrow. To put it plainly, Oracle is just using money to make more money.

I never thought that Sun is going to be acquired by any company. I always felt that it is self sufficient (with the Java licensing). Though it cannot grow into giants like IBM, HP, Dell or even Oracle, it is already a great company with products that change the lives of many PC users. Java is like a disease that spreads so widely and for so long. It definitely does not pale in the competition with Linux for the adoption of open source software. In fact, it has reached areas that Linux can’t even have access to. With its newly acquired technologies, MySQL and VirtualBox, Sun seems to position itself quite well in the industry. However, the truth is Sun is constantly searching for its direction. It is locked within the two domains of both hardware and software. Unlike IBM, it can’t shake off its hardware unit and concentrate on its software (which is not earning much for Sun). Declining hardware business simply imply that Sun had to find an antidote fast and suddenly IBM came into the picture.

For what has happened today, I have to attribute part of this to IBM. Yes, thanks to their strategic hindsight, Oracle has obtained what it has long wished for. If not for IBM, I seriously don’t think the executives at Sun would consider the option of selling the company. Perhaps they were tired after so many years of struggling to find the right way. They had changed enough top guy to have a sense that nothing is working great. IBM makes the perfect match to the marriage, likewise, a strong open source contributor with strong financial backing. If Sun is with IBM now, Java is deemed to be free for life.

I guess this is what life is all about: villains or powerful barons with monetary rights took possessions of something of great value to all and re-offered these valuables at much higher prices with the single-mindedness of bagging all the benefits to themselves. Shame on you and those that played a part in making this happen. I believe the souls of those in Sun had been wrongly sold. For a mere 7.4 billion, our freedom in the software world have been compromised.

A couple of months ago I openly asked for dream phone of mine to be designed and hence made. A couple of weeks ago I swapped my makeshift mobile with an Android and my life has changed since. Yes, it is true. I always desire to have an iPhone: I have tasted the power of Blackberry with Nokia’s E-Series and enjoyed the large, paranomic photos taken from my Samsung ultra slim handset. The fun of downloading and running all sorts of applications is a first for me, except for limited experience with Nokia and Samsung. I liked my Samsung phone though: it is light, “pocketable” and it slides with styles and communicates well with my touches (until I try iPhone).

For one reason or the other , I have to give up my favourite phone to my old man and the search for the next phone began. Luckily, the search didn’t take long. Android-powered phone became a great substitute for the much desired iPhone. Refusing to pay a huge amount of money (around USD 787) for a phone that I will replace in 1 or 2 years’ time, I opted a cheaper (around USD 213, after trade-in of USD143) and yet comparable device in modern life. With a touch screen that recognizes gestures, sensors, accelerometers, wifi, GPS (or aGPS) and HSPA connections, I become a true mobile warrior with mail, news & weather update, location finder (as well as the other associated services such as food, shopping and ATMs finder), online “socializing” and a lot of stuffs to do to kill time while in a queue or waiting hopelessly for something to happen. All of a sudden, I am more efficient than I expect myself to be. Like what my horoscope on the day when I purchased the phone described, it opens up a whole new life with surprises and changes.

“Big deal!”, I can hear this from the ever growing number of iPhone owners. They have this, “we have already all these indulgence long time ago” in their looks. But guess what, Android is going to change all that.

To be honest, I have heard of the Android word too often for the past 2 years. I was like, “Big Deal, it’s just another Operating System for mobile devices”. To some level, I was not wrong to think in that way. It’s running on a Linux kernel and coupled by a Java Virtual Machine: 2 of the most powerful open-source (in other words, free) software in the world. What is really different now is the simple word called “application”. What iPhone or iTouch taught the world is applications that can be downloaded and used for free. The capabilities of the device are immediately extended to a limit that can only be determined by the creativeness of application designers. Digital songs are now a fad of the past. So are the digital videos and talking iTouch. Applications are the “in” thing nowadays. You can do all kinds of stuff (as mentioned above) with the applications. If there is anything you don’t like about the apps, just remove them as they cost nothing… Imagine, in the older days, when we happily purchased a IBM compatible PC with MS-DOS (alright, not to exaggerate too much) or Windows, the first thing after booting up the PC we see a colorful window that was to be interpreted as the desktop. We were expected to work on that desktop. But there was nothing much we could do. The only application that is opened more often than the calculator app is probably Solitaire. The point is: we need more applications than just those provided by the OS to make full use of our computers. Otherwise, they would just be performing the role they had in shops or companies (to show a sign of intelligence or technological advancement).

Until the Free Software movement arrived, every application that we wished to try out provided a painful experience of facing the verdict that whether we had purchased the right software. With free applications, we learned more about our needs of these applications and became more knowledgeable. It was a delightful and carefree experience.

One reason why Linux is still losing its long time battle with Microsoft Windows is the user friendliness or ease of use. Most people are already pampered by a wonderful tool called mouse and have a distaste of keeping two hands locked to the plane of bricks in front of their screen. This may explains why Android may have a better acceptance than its predecessor if not, cousins from the PC world.

Another benefit of Android is that it can run on many mobile platforms. It doesn’t have to be running on devices with the bitten apple logo. It can run on your favourite Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, HTC, or even BlackBerry if they like. It is pretty much like Microsoft Windows running on Dell, HP, Acer or Toshiba hardware. It doesn’t have to be using an Intel or AMD chipset.

Guess what? It will follow iTouch or iPhone (or even iPad) closely as the platform software shifts from one hardware domain to another. It is not locked to just mobile phone devices or platform. One day, a TV might be powered by Android, which really prompted me to ask why Google is investing on another OS called ChromiumOS. Unless the answer is Chrome OS is actually meant to match up Mac OS X, I can’t take in any other explanation. Back to the topic, Android will grow in terms of width, depth and heights.

Apple is feeling the strain of managing the quality of its applications and starts to charge money for any application that wishes to be listed in their Store. This is uncommon as it is never practised by Microsoft (they only do so for the different hardware running below Windows) on the PC platform. It is unclear whether Android or Google will follow suit. To me, software quality only grows by rules of Darwinism: evolution and survival of the fittest. The perfect example is stable software I am using now from Sourceforge and GNU.

From one angle of view, iPhone portrays the image of elegance, class and sophistication. Android phones may look pale in that kind of comparison and hence, considered to be more rugged: something suitable for the streets or alleys and probably the mass market. I would imagine such marketing campaign to differentiate the two in the future. Of course, Apple is capable of taking the mass market with iPhone, just like how it took away the entire market with iPods. The same could happen to Android makers. Take for instance, a Vertu phone with Android.

The two camps (i-whatever and Android) will be inseparable from now on. There are tons of application developers who want presence on both software platform in order to achieve universality. Of course, more competition will come as Microsoft, Symbian and Palm OS (or maybe WebOS) realize the importance of applications. So far, the tens of thousands applications should act as insurmountable barrier to entry.

The story is the same as having a very powerful TV with fast processing speeds and display of high resolution, but not enough content to keep the viewers tucked in their couch.

This is a desperate call to all handset makers! I need this phone badly.

I am looking for a phone that does Blackberry, runs iPhone and Office applications, communicates with GPS, Bluetooth, GPRS (or any mobile broadband networks) and wifi, works obediently according to my gentle touches if not, with the multi-functional QWERTY, processes faster than my Netbooks, doubles up as my iPod with video playback, shoots sharp and colorful photos with 5x zoom, panoramic mode and flash in at least 2 x HD resolution, looks clear under the bright sunlight, is alive for more than 3 days (with all the above functions running at the same time) before a charge via USB is required (or charges by kinetic) and fits my pocket well with a feeling of weightlessness.

Good, I know you will ask this. How much am I going to pay for this? Probably less than USD 500. So, are you game for it?

Remember dreams are to be pursued. Hope to hear from you soon!

It is about time to talk about digital press.

Google Books, a feature on Google website, is nothing new to everyone by now. Google has now digitized 10,000,000 books (according to Official Google Blog) since 2004. This is about 10 times the estimated number of English words (Merriam-Webster). However, Google Books is not the only source for digitized press. There are Internet Archive, Europeana, Gallica and HathiTrust. Also, the Project Gutenberg is really the pioneer of digital library. Forget about buying classics such as Alice in Wonderland and works from Charles Dickens. You can get it free from PG. Don’t worry about copyright issues if you are in the States. My only complaint is the number of supported formats (from text to audio files) is large but not consistent (you may not find the format you want).

To me, this is a fantastic idea though not the most original one. To digitize all the books (currently only in English) around the world and put together in a space-saving server, it just too productive. Yes, that is the correct economics term to use. Productivity level is high for this that I can’t even determine a reasonable value for it. Imagine all the books’ contents that can be stored and made available to all everywhere around the globe. You don’t have to queue or fight for the book you badly need for your assignment. You don’t have to buy the book which you only need a few pages of. The best part is you can search faster than your physical eyes for the words that you are looking for. If you learn better by listening, then you can simply use some reading software to aid your learning. Audio books are another alternative.

Well, this is just me. There are many others who are against the novel idea behind this movement by Google. Surprisingly, Microsoft and Yahoo (or just Microsoft) happens to be among them, the Open Book Alliance (representing… er… people of Open Book?). Amazon has the loudest voice and at some level of justification, it does have some rights to express its views. However, the alliance represents only such a percentage of the whole publishing industry. Where did they find the courage to put up such a fight. It costs peanuts to them to set up the same equipment as Google and starts creating their own digital library (Microsoft did try before but apparently, they feel seeking the other path is easier).

Main players in the publishing industry, on the other hand, looked calmer than expected. They seemed to be concerned much about having their copyrights paid for. One can’t deny that the potential market for electronic books is huge. It’s unbelievable when you work out the costs and profits of running a completely digital publishing. It’s just basically you, formally the publisher, and the authors running the whole show. You just have to do away with your printing operations and logistics, which are the greatest costs of your business. Enough said.

If this day is to come, purchasing of e-book should be as easy as a mouse click. The moment you click and read the book, you have to pay. As your mileage (i.e. the amount of data downloaded) increases, the savings for payment increase. When you finish the book, you will be given a one-time offer to download the book for keep and your name will be printed on every page of the e-book to avoid the book from falling into the hands of others. You can transfer the ownership by simply giving a small administrative charge for it.

Mr. Darwin have long reminded us the existence of evolution in our world. It is just a matter of time. Take the example of MP3. Many years ago, the downloading of MP3 songs were widespread and almost uncontrollable. The music industry suffered greatly from the loss of revenue. Lawsuits began to take place, targeting at software providers who facilitated such downloads. While these were happening, the price of audio Compact Discs (CDs) fell and fell. The same CDs can store 100 over songs in the MP3 format, compared to around 10 to 16 songs in the WAV format. It really made little sense to pay so much for something less. However, MP3 is not totally free. There is a license fee charged to all players of such format. Hence, makers of audio devices created their own audio formats to avoid such charges. Then, a brilliantly timed move by Apple Computer, a webstore is established for the sale of songs in AAC format. These songs can be downloaded to iPods for playing. Each song was charged at 99cents and artists were paid for their rights to their hard work. And the rest became the history of digital audio industry.

Google has been paying for the rights of the digital books they have converted. More policies would be enforced on usage of these information. They may not reap the rewards for all these deeds. There are more than 1 online stores selling e-books and audiobooks. Like in the example above, all it takes is a well-thought business model that keeps everyone happy and realistic of what is feasible. It is about time that Google re-think who they should be paying and whether selling digital books is going to be a business venture for them.

IT or Information Technology is something we are no longer unfamiliar with nowadays. There might be minority of people who pride themselves on not being caught in some crazy trends but I believe this number is coming down. I just hook my father up to the Internet more than half a year as his faithful service (Teletext giving “real time” stock prices) from the local broadcaster suddenly stopped. Instead, calling busy brokers to ask for price information, he approached me for help. So, I threw together a decent laptop loaded with SUSE Linux and then, it began… Amazingly, my dad survives till today, making only complaints about the inability to install some Window applications recommended by my sister.

Even though things seem still to be growing, the industry is shrinking as the IT giants began to cross one another’s path. Take the G-M-Y, M-G-Y or Y-M-G for example, Microsoft (M) has been aggressively pushing for market share in the search engine business. Partnering with Yahoo (Y) and Wolfram Alpha (if you don’t know what it is, see this),and at the same time, (close to) bribing News Corporation, Microsoft is really putting up a good fight for something they have missed out in the beginning despite being ahead with the Internet technologies. They focused too much on the web browser technology and neglected the true potential of web services or portal. They followed up with the purchase of Hotmail and tried to build a community around the MSN portal but they are still way behind Yahoo and Google (G). Just imagine how fast Google builds up its email service, brushing Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail aside. As for the portal, Google tries to do it in a different way (typical of Google) while they take cautious measures to protect their most valuable assets: search engine.  Though they also try to imitate services such as Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! News, they should receive credit in exploring in other areas such as Google Maps, Google book and Google Docs.

Google Docs could be the trigger point for the war between Microsoft and Google. Challenging Microsoft’s 2nd prized product with features (free and collaborative) it lacks of, Google presents itself as quite a competitor in this arena. Thanks to the many acquisitions before and the maturity of the Office technologies, Microsoft is able to stand off such challenges (not the first time since Sun Microsystems and IBM have been in the competition for quite some time. Not to forget other Office products built for Linux and Mac OS). But things might change in the future as Google seems to have taken the right step. Microsoft should learn from the lessons it had with GNU tools (free software tools). While Linux did make a big impact on the server software business, its success with consumer is not as measurable. But GNU tools and free tools such as Eclipse have seriously challenged Microsoft’s compiler tools’ business. When it tries to release the product for free a few years ago, it is a sign of things changing. Seriously, collaborative software for unlimited users (and of course, for zero license fee) is very attractive for multinational companies and international community. If the Google Doc is able to match up with Microsoft Office or somewhere close to OpenOffice or IBM Lotus Symphony, it would be my default choice (rather than preferred one).

This probably explains why Microsoft is fighting so hard in this business of searching. So far, these wonderful services from Google have a common issue. They may not be as outstanding as its search engine service, particularly in terms of popularity and technological edge. We have used Google search engine for more than 10 years now and will continue to do so, just as we will use Microsoft Windows. Google Maps looks promising until Bing Maps and Yahoo! Maps can be seen on some websites. Google books remain a black horse. Having cleared recently a barrier with publishers, it still faces an uphill task especially in the face of Amazon.com. This is always the case when you are changing the landscape of the industry. See what MP3 or digital audio has done to the music industry. Anyway, the great benefits of the technology are becoming visible in national libraries. Another reason why Microsoft is in this battle could be the attacks incoming (Google Chrome in both web browser and Operating System). It just can’t sit there and take the hits.

With the Google Chrome OS, Google prepares to make a paradigm shift in the industry landscape again. Already running in mobile phones in the Android version, the OS is tagged with what Google is famous for: search, and its other services. In this move, Google tries to spread over a wide range of platform, building on its currently available services or technologies. They might be over stretched but it definitely worth a try. But by completing this step, Google has set stage for direct confrontation with Microsoft across the horizon. Next, it would just need to push forward (vertically) for all technologies and head for a showdown.

Let’s not leave Yahoo! out of the picture. Its portal services or business is still amazingly strong, thanks to the first-mover advantage. It just needs to re-discover the magic that brings them to where they are today. Amidst the commotion of selling the company, Yahoo! shows signs of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Abandoning the search engine business (which might already have been a lost cause), partnering with cash rich Microsoft and extending on the email service (to include facilities to social networking and so on), Yahoo! is making the right moves. It is also a key player in online advertising but this is also the most intense competition would be. Being more focused now, Yahoo! can be a force and relive its past glorious moments. Strategy should be simple: kept out from the battle between the 2 Goliaths and stay afloat as there will be tremors created by the two from time to time for sure.

Not long ago I had attended a conference on Web 2.0 and in one of the talks, I was introduced to the concept of Web 3.0. It was the first time I acquainted myself with the latest technology on Internet. Obviously, my mouth was wide open when the speaker threw all these new terms to my life. For a moment, I felt so backward and then, I re-assured myself that being there has made me one of the pioneers in this knowledge (let’s not compare with others…). My first thought of Web 3.0, “is it a marketing gimmick?” Someone must be wanting to outrun others and jump the ship from 2.0 to 3.0 by introducing some funny ideas. I mean it’s normal when people have already started populating words with 2.0 behind (good money for dictionaries though). It’s sooner or later that all the words we know will have numerals at the back…

So what’s Web 3.0? Is there really such a thing? Well, it turn out to be true. It always difficult to accept things that you rarely are in contact with. Web 3.0 is related to the semantic Web. In fact, based on Wikipedia’s explanation, semantic web is a component of Web 3.0 (quoted from the Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of WWW).

What semantic web means is this: a more “meaningful” web that can link to one another through “meaningful” relationships (in my very own words, please “comms” me if I am wrong). In Web 1.0, the websites provide static information which people just read from them. In Web 2.0, these information becomes alive. You can now directly communicate with websites and use their services like yours. However, the whole wide web is still in a mess. For example, when you do a search on “Television”, you will see 301 million results. But you are looking for, is probably the television programme for tonight, or prices of television (LCD, Plasma or LED). A word can have many specific meanings or different applications. So if the web is more structured (i.e. categorized nicely), you may find what you want in a faster manner, compared to going through the millions of results.

For a quick demonstration, click on this.

If you think Google is the only one equipped with this, then you are wrong. Try clicking on an article on Washington Post’s website (sorry, it used to be free access without membership login). You will see at the bottom and below the article, a box with a number of circles with names of the key people or organisations in them. Click on any one of them, you will see a few more circles linking to the one that you have clicked. This shows the related items and it is a perfect application of semantic web.

When I tried to pitch this new finding to my colleagues, they gave me the same reply, “So?”. I could only say that this is still in the early stage of development. The killer application is yet to be found. How many people have really heard of MPEG-7 or MPEG-21? How about 4G and 7G? All these take time to develop, mature and apply broadly and deeply. I know you are going to ask me, “so what’s in for me then?”. I am sure you are like me: I am not going to spend time linking up whole the web and try to make meaning out of them. I would rather wait and make use of the outcome.

I would like to think in this way. This new web should give an experience, much alike to that of Amazon’s. While you browse its catalog, it studies you and your actions. It remembers and tries to recommend you the related items. The deeper you follow their recommendations, the more advanced or specialized the recommendations would be. What’s even more amaz(on)ing is that it can package a nice deal for you instantly. Or it can create tailored promotions for you on your next visit or in your newsletter. The temptation to spend is high as you are getting things that you are at least interested in.

Now, imagine the web only gives you information that you are only interested in. It also remembers what you looked for previously and when you are back to this search again. It gives more in-depth information and other alternatives that are very close to what you are finding. It draws you to look further and find more than what you intend to. What would you say of this experience? Satisfied user, you must be. It completes you.

If this is too abstract, let me try again. For instance, you are looking for a recipe. You run the dish name on the search engine, and it returns the exact recipe. Not only that, it also provide some links to videos showing the steps, cheap prices of the ingredients and where to get them, different varieties of the recipe for different taste buds (the search engine probably remembers yours!) and cooking lessons that will help you in this dish. Not only your search is a fruitful one, it’s also a very instant one. Why waste time looking through the results one by one? This is what we call, “Personalization”. It’s all about you, the user of the WWW.

And how’s that for you?

Searching for the right tool to “search” what you want from the Internet? You might think that search was already over long time ago. Sorry that I have gotten you all confused over this busines of searching. You can’t blame me really. Blame those search engines.

Yes, it’s a new search engine online and yes, it’s from a familiar name. Welcome, Bing.com from Microsoft! Other than visual appeal, it’s a bit tough to tell the difference from Google.com. I did a test by entering the same text on both websites. Great, the results are different. Different algorithm must be in use. The question is, why another?

From the business point of view (purely Microsoft’s), it makes sense to have what everyone is having. With Microsoft’s marketing muscle, it won’t find it difficult to create some revenue from online advertising from this portal (oh yes, the magic word that we used to relate it with Yahoo or AOL, just like search with Yahoo, Excite and Lycos etc). Not ony that, it also helps to weaken Google command on the price. It’s direct retaliation from Microsoft after Google crossed the boundaries by creating its own web browser and operating systems (so far limited to handheld devices). Well, that’s not all to it. It also represents an attack on the sinking Yahoo and whatever there remains.

Of course, it won’t be straightforward victory. The portals are built around communities or loyal customers. They won’t be gone in a day or even a few years. As Microsoft should already know, search engines are now more than just what they do. They themselves are a brand. Customers remember the logo and vaguely what the search engine actually excels in. As Google pampers its users with more freebies and convenience, its users stay closer with it. This is why Yahoo is still a force these days. It’s really about value creation. At the end of the day, I ,as a user, don’t truly bother who gives me a better search result. So long as I can find what I am looking for. I am a satisfied customer and a repeated one too.

In a market where brands are important, one should focus on differentiation. Yes, Google is unique indeed. Now that it’s a big boy. It can perform and create challenges that a few can match. So, it’s essential for each to target a specific market segment. Wikipedia.org is a good example. It helps to search for specific term or words too. It is more just than a list of results. It’s educational and encourages more collaboration and sharing from the larger group out there. Another example is wolframalpha.com (don’t ask me what it means). Try typing names of 3 companies (max is 4) of the same industry and voila! You can see an executive summary of current prices, fundamentals, price history and performance etc. You can even download the report in pdf (but limited information). Though it’s not as comprehensive as Google, it stands out for what it does best. It’s still in its infancy and I expect more from this tool.

To sum it up, the Internet works much like the TV or media. Whatever tool or program that receives the most airtime from its users or viewers will always command a better price for the advertisements. It’s also unlikely that all viewers will switch channel at one time. There might be trends that they follow. So, it’s back to the same, old theory of “the best wins it all”. Even so, there will still be viewers for news program or sports, discovery, science and on on. The program may forget the mass and still survive (that’s why there are so many magazine titles around the world) these days. Though users like to have choices, they would stick to what they like most. As such, it doesn’t matter how many search engines are out there. Unless there is an outstanding one, I would be less likely to change that bookmark or search toolbar of mine.