Today (or last night, actually) marks a sea-change in wireless communications: the iPhone Skype application debuted. It is also coming to the Blackberry. Why is this such a disruptive change? Because it represents the final move to data convergence. With the implementation of Skype on cell phones, the voice officially becomes "data." Actually, it has been data since the implementation of digital wireless voice transmission over a decade ago, but Skype represents a transition to cellular communication via Voice-over-Interntet-Protocol (VoIP). With VoIP, a voice call becomes just another Internet connection.
For the short-term, Apple and AT&T are throttling the availablility of Skype to Wi-Fi connections only (not available on EDGE or 3G), but this is only temporary. AT&T may disagree about how temporary it is, but it is temporary. This is because the battle lines have been drawn. AT&T (and by extension, all the other wireless carriers) want to protect their tariffs for charging for voice calls by the minute. The reason is simple; it makes them lots of money. But Skype makes the voice call just another data stream, no different than a song playing on Pandora or a video playing on YouTube. Voice communication becomes bundled with the phone's data plan.
Why this is an issue with the phone company is simple. For the iPhone, the lowest phone plan is $39.99. However, an unlimited data plan is $20.00. Of course, at present AT&T forces you to have both a phone and data plan. Now this is going to change. It is only a matter of time for a company such as Metro PCS to start offering unlimited data/phone plans for a set rate. In the short-term this means that phone plans will decrease in price while data plans increase. In the long-term, there will only be one type of plan--data.
The reason this is a major issue is that carriers make their money off of voice services since they are billed at a higher rate than data. For one thing, they are on a per minute charge (or the user is forced to purchase a group of minutes for a set rate). The carriers like individual rates for voice, SMS, and similar services. For example, of a per minute basis, SMS is the highest cost service on a cellular phone.
With the Skype service, this is going to change--and change disruptively. Already, Skype is the largest carrier of international phone calls. This is not a big deal because AT&T's old Long Lines service has been a decreasing revenue stream for years. Now they are faced with the same thing happening on their wireless phone services. Within the next five years, the wireless companies will be all data services. With this context, it is easy to see why they are looking at metering wireless data. It is their solution to decreasing voice phone revenues.
What do you think?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Netscape Revisited
I wrote a review of Google Chrome--Google's browser entry--back in September, 2008. In it, I described the philosophy behind the browser, and the features provided in the Windows version. With several month's experience and looking at Google Chrome in context with Google's other applications and services, it occurred to me that I was having a deja vu moment. The Google environment reminded me of something similar I had seen or heard about years ago. Then I remembered: Netscape!
Many users today probably don't remember the Netscape browser. However, until a full frontal attack by Microsoft with the introduction and bundling of their Internet Explorer (IE)browser with their Windows operating system, Netscape was the preferred browser for both personal and business use. Indeed, Netscape and their development of HTML seemed to be rapidly making the operating system an afterthought--Netscape would run on a wide variety of operating systems, providing the same user interface and the same functionality. The Internet became primary and the local operating system became secondary. With Netscape incubating this view, it is clear in hindsight why Microsoft took such an aggressive approach to them by developing their own competing browser.
Fast-forwarding a little more than a decade, it can be seen how much has changed and how much things have stayed the same. First, Microsoft won the first battle of the browsers. Indeed, I found an old Web site from 1998 that showed Netscape had 65% of the market while IE had 32%. By January 2002, those statistics had changed to IE 85.8% and ALL other browsers 14.2%. By that time, Netscape was part of AOL and no longer a major force in the market. However, AOL did an interesting thing: They placed the source code for most of Netscape into the open source movement by giving the code to the Mozilla organization. Since it was open source, anyone could use it, work on it, and improve it. With the thousands contributing time, money, and intellectual property to Mozilla, by August, 2008 just before Google Chrome was introduced, IE had 50.5%, Firefox (Mozilla's official browser product) 43.7% and all others 5.8%.
Today, with Google Chrome having been introduced last September, IE has 43.6%, Firefox has 46.4%, Google Chrome has 4%, and all others have 6%. What is astounding about these numbers is that Chrome has gained 4% of the market in just seven months and their browser only runs on Windows. With the release of Chrome to Linux and Mac OS-X later this year, it can be expected that Chrome will grow at an even faster rate.
More importantly, Google Chrome has revived many of the design philosophies of the original Netscape browser. Chrome is the first browser to partition each instance of the browser, whether tab or window. This makes the browser much more stable because instances are independent. It also makes Chrome look more like a user interface tied to an operating environment, one of the original design goals of Netscape. Second, unlike Netscape, Google has developed a broad array of user applications that run in the network cloud and require nothing more than a browser to use. With Chrome, each of these applications can have their own instance of a browser window (or tab) and operate independently. The result is a very sophisticated office system can run in the browser while being operating system independent. Unlike Netscape which had an information portal as its main user application, Google Chrome can support Google Mail, Google Sites, Google Chat, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Sketchup, and Google Apps (Word processor, Spreadsheet, and Slide presentations). The result is Google has created an environment that can provide a consistent interface across virtually any operating system and virtually any device. (While mobile devices are still somewhat problematic, they still have similar access. With the introduction of Android devices and continuing developmental support for Apple's iPhone, the interface will only become more similar.)
What this all means is that while Netscape failed in their original vision, they may have the last laugh on Microsoft. It would appear that Google Chrome is in the right place, with the right product (and a multitude of supporting products and partners developing compatible applications and features), and at the right time. The operating system is becoming secondary to the user interface and the applications accessible through that user interface. With an increasing number of technology companies embracing cloud computing (Google, Amazon, eBay, Salesforce just to name a few), Google Chrome only stands to gain.
What are your thoughts? Your comments and questions are invited.
Many users today probably don't remember the Netscape browser. However, until a full frontal attack by Microsoft with the introduction and bundling of their Internet Explorer (IE)browser with their Windows operating system, Netscape was the preferred browser for both personal and business use. Indeed, Netscape and their development of HTML seemed to be rapidly making the operating system an afterthought--Netscape would run on a wide variety of operating systems, providing the same user interface and the same functionality. The Internet became primary and the local operating system became secondary. With Netscape incubating this view, it is clear in hindsight why Microsoft took such an aggressive approach to them by developing their own competing browser.
Fast-forwarding a little more than a decade, it can be seen how much has changed and how much things have stayed the same. First, Microsoft won the first battle of the browsers. Indeed, I found an old Web site from 1998 that showed Netscape had 65% of the market while IE had 32%. By January 2002, those statistics had changed to IE 85.8% and ALL other browsers 14.2%. By that time, Netscape was part of AOL and no longer a major force in the market. However, AOL did an interesting thing: They placed the source code for most of Netscape into the open source movement by giving the code to the Mozilla organization. Since it was open source, anyone could use it, work on it, and improve it. With the thousands contributing time, money, and intellectual property to Mozilla, by August, 2008 just before Google Chrome was introduced, IE had 50.5%, Firefox (Mozilla's official browser product) 43.7% and all others 5.8%.
Today, with Google Chrome having been introduced last September, IE has 43.6%, Firefox has 46.4%, Google Chrome has 4%, and all others have 6%. What is astounding about these numbers is that Chrome has gained 4% of the market in just seven months and their browser only runs on Windows. With the release of Chrome to Linux and Mac OS-X later this year, it can be expected that Chrome will grow at an even faster rate.
More importantly, Google Chrome has revived many of the design philosophies of the original Netscape browser. Chrome is the first browser to partition each instance of the browser, whether tab or window. This makes the browser much more stable because instances are independent. It also makes Chrome look more like a user interface tied to an operating environment, one of the original design goals of Netscape. Second, unlike Netscape, Google has developed a broad array of user applications that run in the network cloud and require nothing more than a browser to use. With Chrome, each of these applications can have their own instance of a browser window (or tab) and operate independently. The result is a very sophisticated office system can run in the browser while being operating system independent. Unlike Netscape which had an information portal as its main user application, Google Chrome can support Google Mail, Google Sites, Google Chat, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Sketchup, and Google Apps (Word processor, Spreadsheet, and Slide presentations). The result is Google has created an environment that can provide a consistent interface across virtually any operating system and virtually any device. (While mobile devices are still somewhat problematic, they still have similar access. With the introduction of Android devices and continuing developmental support for Apple's iPhone, the interface will only become more similar.)
What this all means is that while Netscape failed in their original vision, they may have the last laugh on Microsoft. It would appear that Google Chrome is in the right place, with the right product (and a multitude of supporting products and partners developing compatible applications and features), and at the right time. The operating system is becoming secondary to the user interface and the applications accessible through that user interface. With an increasing number of technology companies embracing cloud computing (Google, Amazon, eBay, Salesforce just to name a few), Google Chrome only stands to gain.
What are your thoughts? Your comments and questions are invited.
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