So what a year. The moves in the technology and tablet space has been enormous. At the start of the year it was the launch of the iPad. A great device which was position to take a very large market share from the e-book readers. Strategically this was a great move by Steve Jobs. He made the e-readers irrelevant and being basically the only type of tablet/slate technology in the market at that time with the functions and feature which no-one else had Apple cornered the market. There sales numbers have shown that and the e-reader has moved into the space it should have started and that was the consumer area. e-readers that were in the US$5/600 space dropped to US$99/149 space.
There are still some in the top end trying to compete with iPad and other tablet/slates that are entering the market but you know longer hear much from them. The only thing they did have over iPad and other tablets is the e-paper concept. But now that is also changing and the Tablet/Slates are starting to take that up.
The other small entry into the market is the Net-book computer great again but I feel just missing the boat. I feel the Tablet/Slate has come of age and they will now take the place of the Net-book. But we will still need our desktop and I see that the Desktop will become more prominent. I feel the laptop and the net-book will be things of the past and we will see a migration to more capable desktops and the Tablet/slates being the mobile option of choice.
Over this last year I have been scanning the market for a new tablet/slate computer. A project that I am working on has been part of the reason as well as I believe it is the natural progression. The important part if finding a product that is fit for purpose. People constantly forget there is a purpose and reason for a technology and it is not always to replace an existing technology.
I have been looking to take the analog forms of the past and moving them into a digital space. This is nothing new but finding a tablet that was light weight and functional has been a challenge but I have been getting closer. The project I am working on has to demonstrate a windows solutions so I have been struggling to find something to fit that bill. So far the only tablet that partly meets the requirement is the ExoPC Slate that is because of the interface. It runs windows 7 but the designer has developed their own interface which has been great to see. There are still two issues which I feel still needs work in the Tablet/Slate space and that is usability in small screen factors and data input.
This I believe has been well addressed by Notion Ink with their use of the Pixel QI screen and their rethink of the interface. As Rohan Shravan has pointed out we need to re-think the way we interact with our technology. To this end the work that Rohan and the Nortion Ink Team has done with the 'adam' tablet offering in the market has been a leader in thinking in this space.
The work being done on screens with the introduction of Pixel QI and other e paper screens will bring in a very different landscape for users. With lower power consumption it will mean we will be more attuned to be totally online 24/7. The next area I feel will have to move fast is the method of accessing that data. That is in the area of 4G and 4G and Max WiFi. These will be the space to keep an eye on.
But going back to a previous post we will need to get a better understanding of portable identity management. We will need to improve in this space as I believe that the Tablet/Slates are a short term technology and that intelligent surfaces will start to emerge. The Tablet/Slates will be here for a little while but the marketing parts of business will want to take it further. Embedding the intelligent surfaces in common areas but the issue that will face all of these technologies is identification in a quick and easy fashion but secure.
Bio-scanners, RF-ID tags, DNA markers who knows? We shall see, I am forever looking forward to what new ideas and progress are being made. But of the technology I have seen this year, Rohan Shravan and his company Notion Ink are out there in front. Not competing with other technology companies but leading the way and the conversation.
Well I am now waiting for 2011 and my new 'adam'. I was one of the fortunate people who was able to place my order when the pre-orders were open. It was a great time waiting to get on to the form. I remarked at that time which by the way was 2:30am in the morning as the launch was at mid-night India time that the last time I cued up was at the launch of Star Wars the very first movie. I was some 200 meters down the street waiting to get in. Notion Ink has generated this type of interest, not for the fact they have a new device in the market place but the way Rohan and Notion Ink approached their market. For what it is worth check out the adam at the Notion Ink Website
Monday, December 27, 2010
Thursday, September 09, 2010
So where will this technology go??
I have been a geek ever since I can remember. I remember programming at school when you got a card to write your program on using a pencil mark for each character. It would take a couple of week to develop your program and then days to mark up all your cards. They would then be collected and sent off and two weeks later a print out was returned with your program printed out with the results.
My biggest program took ages and on the results being returned I had no answer. It was pointed out that I had missed a full stop. So I fixed the error and then waited another two weeks to get the results and printout back. Thank god we have progressed from there. My journey took me from a 16 switch interface which had some flashing lights to my first computer a "Sinclair ZX80" this was the ultimate with touch pad keyboard. Using my own cassette recorder for media storage, and a black and white tv. It took many hour of cursing and swearing before I got the screen to display the cursor, but I persisted and finally it came. That computer was based on the ZX80 Chip and 1k of memory, yes (1) one kilobyte of memory or 1024 characters. I had such fun with this very powerful piece of technology. I ended up getting a memory upgrade to 32k of RAM. This was housed on a piece of circuit board 10cm x 10 cm. It was a bare board with multiple chips and wires which had to be stored in some aluminum foil and unwrapped and plugged in when needed. O' what power I had then. :)
From there, there was no stopping me, I then went through a VIC20, Commodore 64, Tandy TRS Model 3 and finally to my first IBM Compatible which was not that compatible. Then through the XT, 286, 386, 486 Pentium till finally into Laptops and finally Slate or Tablet computer. In fact my current tablet is an "iTablet" yes thats right and "iTablet" not an "iPad".
But where will it stop, only recently it was the Netbook which is in someway a cut down laptop, but that is slowly being dispelled as these little Netbooks are as powerful and many laptops but considerably longer battery life. Then there came the e-Reader which was a technology fit for purpose and there future was looking very good, until. You guessed it, Apple and Steve Jobs. The launch of iPad basically has killed the e-Reader Market.
The iPad launched and provided all the functionality of an e-Reader but in full colour and giving wireless and 3G connectivity. It did not have the ePaper quality but for the price comparison it just devastated the e-Reader market. These devices have drop so much in price many companies that were about to release their version either drop their prices by 1/2 or 2/3 and even with drew from the market.
This space which the iPad had carved out for a while has been quite. There has been a lot of talk about other devices coming to market which will compete or attempt to kill the iPad market but much has yet to reach the market. But finally it is starting to happen, the devices are starting to pour into the market. Android and Microsoft have provided the OS to run these devices and more are still coming.
But where do we go from here. The Netbook was looking so promising, but from all indications the tablet will change that dynamic. There will still be some netbook in the market place but I believe that market will go the way of the e-Reader. But will the tablet be here for long as these devices are more and more being so well connected to the grid, ie the internet, phone systems (3G) local networks we don't need to have so much storage on the devices they are becoming more and more an interface into the Cloud.
What I see is that more and more it will be just a surface that we interact with to use and manipulate our data. The table will just be the interface into the cloud and what we will start to see is more publically available surfaces. Microsoft has been demonstrating these surface in desks and in someway they have been more of science fiction due to costs and accessibility for the general public.
I see the device that we will end up with will be our identity. We will then interact with these intelligent surfaces to access our information and data. You will walking into the internet cafe or communication location where you will be identified and your interface which will be customise to your settings will appear on the surface and you would carry out your work.
Once you have finished as you walk away the surface will return to a clear surface ready for the next user. The only time we would have a portable device when there is no surface to work from. Our desks of the future will be dynamic surfaces which then curve up to present a clear perspex screen which would display our information while we are using the surface.
What I see for the future is the development of personal identification and identity management devices which will take advantage of these surfaces as we will see the computer of now disappear. Someone who saw all of this in our future showed us many years ago what we were heading for. My all time favorite show Star Trek, Check them out even the original series you will see our future is getting very close to what Gene Roddenberry showed in these shows. These surfaces you will see completely in the New Generation and Voyager.
So I would say the old keyboard and desktop computer have a very limited future and those dynamic surfaces will be with us in the very near future.
But the Tablet or Slate are now coming of age. Steve Jobs
My biggest program took ages and on the results being returned I had no answer. It was pointed out that I had missed a full stop. So I fixed the error and then waited another two weeks to get the results and printout back. Thank god we have progressed from there. My journey took me from a 16 switch interface which had some flashing lights to my first computer a "Sinclair ZX80" this was the ultimate with touch pad keyboard. Using my own cassette recorder for media storage, and a black and white tv. It took many hour of cursing and swearing before I got the screen to display the cursor, but I persisted and finally it came. That computer was based on the ZX80 Chip and 1k of memory, yes (1) one kilobyte of memory or 1024 characters. I had such fun with this very powerful piece of technology. I ended up getting a memory upgrade to 32k of RAM. This was housed on a piece of circuit board 10cm x 10 cm. It was a bare board with multiple chips and wires which had to be stored in some aluminum foil and unwrapped and plugged in when needed. O' what power I had then. :)
From there, there was no stopping me, I then went through a VIC20, Commodore 64, Tandy TRS Model 3 and finally to my first IBM Compatible which was not that compatible. Then through the XT, 286, 386, 486 Pentium till finally into Laptops and finally Slate or Tablet computer. In fact my current tablet is an "iTablet" yes thats right and "iTablet" not an "iPad".
But where will it stop, only recently it was the Netbook which is in someway a cut down laptop, but that is slowly being dispelled as these little Netbooks are as powerful and many laptops but considerably longer battery life. Then there came the e-Reader which was a technology fit for purpose and there future was looking very good, until. You guessed it, Apple and Steve Jobs. The launch of iPad basically has killed the e-Reader Market.
The iPad launched and provided all the functionality of an e-Reader but in full colour and giving wireless and 3G connectivity. It did not have the ePaper quality but for the price comparison it just devastated the e-Reader market. These devices have drop so much in price many companies that were about to release their version either drop their prices by 1/2 or 2/3 and even with drew from the market.
This space which the iPad had carved out for a while has been quite. There has been a lot of talk about other devices coming to market which will compete or attempt to kill the iPad market but much has yet to reach the market. But finally it is starting to happen, the devices are starting to pour into the market. Android and Microsoft have provided the OS to run these devices and more are still coming.
But where do we go from here. The Netbook was looking so promising, but from all indications the tablet will change that dynamic. There will still be some netbook in the market place but I believe that market will go the way of the e-Reader. But will the tablet be here for long as these devices are more and more being so well connected to the grid, ie the internet, phone systems (3G) local networks we don't need to have so much storage on the devices they are becoming more and more an interface into the Cloud.
What I see is that more and more it will be just a surface that we interact with to use and manipulate our data. The table will just be the interface into the cloud and what we will start to see is more publically available surfaces. Microsoft has been demonstrating these surface in desks and in someway they have been more of science fiction due to costs and accessibility for the general public.
I see the device that we will end up with will be our identity. We will then interact with these intelligent surfaces to access our information and data. You will walking into the internet cafe or communication location where you will be identified and your interface which will be customise to your settings will appear on the surface and you would carry out your work.
Once you have finished as you walk away the surface will return to a clear surface ready for the next user. The only time we would have a portable device when there is no surface to work from. Our desks of the future will be dynamic surfaces which then curve up to present a clear perspex screen which would display our information while we are using the surface.
What I see for the future is the development of personal identification and identity management devices which will take advantage of these surfaces as we will see the computer of now disappear. Someone who saw all of this in our future showed us many years ago what we were heading for. My all time favorite show Star Trek, Check them out even the original series you will see our future is getting very close to what Gene Roddenberry showed in these shows. These surfaces you will see completely in the New Generation and Voyager.
So I would say the old keyboard and desktop computer have a very limited future and those dynamic surfaces will be with us in the very near future.
But the Tablet or Slate are now coming of age. Steve Jobs
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Architecting the Enterprise
I am about to engage on a project where I will be applying the framework of TOGAF9, The Open Group Architecture Framework, version9. Version 9 was released in Feb 2009 replacing version 8.1.1. Like many frameworks is is not a "use out of the box item", it has over 780 pages, a little bedtime reading.
The challenge I am starting to face is the HOW. There is plenty of information out there on WHAT it is, but so far I have found very little on HOW. If you come across this article any offer of information would be greatly appreciated.
The biggest question I get is what is Enterprise Architecture, or we have an excel list of all our servers. The pragmatic approach is to ask "what needs to be done to make the most of our enterprise IT resources". But in the level of the CIO and business it is the "Alignment of Business and IT"
In many of these IT frameworks they have maturity indicators. Over the years I have devised my own which shows to what level business and IT are integrated. That indicator is the value business places in IT. The value is the fly away comments you hear. "IT never works" or "they just don't get it, why can't do my job?" These are companies that have abdicated their responsibility to IT to figure out what they want. The usual reason being that its to complex and they should know what they are doing, we pay them enough.
Where you don't hear these types of comments are in companies that seam to have figured it out and aligned their business needs to the technology. They have owned their business and identified their needs and requirements. IT then has been given the authority to supply as per their needs. This should be done based on sound business knowledge of: "will this technology improve processes, save time or make money". It can't be any simpler than that, because why would you spend money in any business if it did not give value.
Enterprise Architecture is one of those tools that a business can use to bring about that alignment. It is just one of many tools, ie ITIL, Project Management - Prince2 - PMBOK, Cobit, Governance, etc.
The Enterprise Architect is to IT as a City Planner is to City. Where a city planner would provide a map of a city and the zoning an Enterprise Architect provides the IT Zoning map. The city planner would not provide the individual designs of each building but more a road map of the zones within that City. There Enterprise Architect provides those City Maps of the IT space. Its not to say they don't corral all the details, they draw more of a picture from many viewpoints to interpret the information and details so business is in a better position to invest and manage their investment in IT.
Enterprise Architecture is one of the most effective ways to align both Business and IT. But as they say the proof is in the pudding so I start my journey and we shall see. :)
The challenge I am starting to face is the HOW. There is plenty of information out there on WHAT it is, but so far I have found very little on HOW. If you come across this article any offer of information would be greatly appreciated.
The biggest question I get is what is Enterprise Architecture, or we have an excel list of all our servers. The pragmatic approach is to ask "what needs to be done to make the most of our enterprise IT resources". But in the level of the CIO and business it is the "Alignment of Business and IT"
In many of these IT frameworks they have maturity indicators. Over the years I have devised my own which shows to what level business and IT are integrated. That indicator is the value business places in IT. The value is the fly away comments you hear. "IT never works" or "they just don't get it, why can't do my job?" These are companies that have abdicated their responsibility to IT to figure out what they want. The usual reason being that its to complex and they should know what they are doing, we pay them enough.
Where you don't hear these types of comments are in companies that seam to have figured it out and aligned their business needs to the technology. They have owned their business and identified their needs and requirements. IT then has been given the authority to supply as per their needs. This should be done based on sound business knowledge of: "will this technology improve processes, save time or make money". It can't be any simpler than that, because why would you spend money in any business if it did not give value.
Enterprise Architecture is one of those tools that a business can use to bring about that alignment. It is just one of many tools, ie ITIL, Project Management - Prince2 - PMBOK, Cobit, Governance, etc.
The Enterprise Architect is to IT as a City Planner is to City. Where a city planner would provide a map of a city and the zoning an Enterprise Architect provides the IT Zoning map. The city planner would not provide the individual designs of each building but more a road map of the zones within that City. There Enterprise Architect provides those City Maps of the IT space. Its not to say they don't corral all the details, they draw more of a picture from many viewpoints to interpret the information and details so business is in a better position to invest and manage their investment in IT.
Enterprise Architecture is one of the most effective ways to align both Business and IT. But as they say the proof is in the pudding so I start my journey and we shall see. :)
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