By Brad Wardell
Translating it into real world meanings…
Disclaimer:
I have no affiliate with
Microsoft. I don’t have any inside
track with Microsoft. Heck, our company
doesn’t even have a Microsoft developer or marketing rep!
Yesterday Microsoft outlined
its .net strategy. There is a good
article on it at ZDNet about it:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2592779,00.html?chkpt=zdhpnews01
Microsoft’s plan might seem
foggy at first but what it essentially amounts to is switching the focus from
buying products to subscribing to services. In a few years, a majority of the
computing public will be wired to the Internet via a high speed
connection. This will transform the way
we work and play on our computers.
There will be services that
allow you to get your daily work and play done (subscribing to access the
latest/greatest word processors and games) which we’ll call “content services”
and there will be a service underneath all this that connect you to all your
devices and data seamlessly which we’ll call ROOT.NET.
Microsoft’s goal is to be
the leading provider of the various content services and to be THE ROOT.NET.
So how does Microsoft get
everything and everyone to work together?
That’s where XML comes in. They want to tie everything together with XML
so that all devices and data can work together seamlessly. So be wary when reading articles that talk
about “putting everything on the web” because what I suspect Bill Gates means
by “The web” and what the typical columnist thinks of it are entirely
different.
Let’s use some examples:
You’re going to the airport,
your e-Ticket will be on your PocketPC.
Using wireless communication to a remote location it will retrieve your
ticket information and tell the device being held by the person “collecting”
the tickets where your seat it and such. The computing will be done by that
remote location.
It means when you load up Word
2005 that various parts of Word will be located in various locations. Some on
your local machine, some on a remote machine, some elsewhere depending on what
you’re doing. You’ll write your document and save it do one of your many web
folders whose location will be arbitrary.
It means that if you’re
subscribing to GamingExtremist.net (made that up just now) you’ll be able to
choose several games available that month and when you run it, parts will be
“Cached” locally and parts will be external.
At the end of the month, you may or may not have access to that game
anymore depending on your service provider.
BTW, it means you’ll also need to get used to the word “locally cached”
as it will be the new politically correct buzzword for meaning files stored on
your local machine because the people making the product come to realize that
not everyone has a 100 megabit internet connection.
It means that once voice
recognition is actually useable, driving down the road and talking to your
PocketPC and asking what time Star Wars: Episode III is playing at the local
theatres. The PocketPC talks to a remote location which quickly does the
computing and returns the results and tells you in plain English what you are
looking for. I then say “Tell Bob and
Amanda to meet me at the AMC Livonia at 3:30 to see Episode III.” My PocketPC
isn’t powerful enough to do voice recognition yet but it sends my voice to a
nearby mega server cluster that is which in turn finds where Bob and Amanda are
currently located and tells them what I just said. If my device is off, it
leaves a text message on their PocketPC for next time they turn their
PocketPC’s on. While driving I might
ask the computer to tell me what’s happening in the news on topics I pick or
read my eBook to me or ask it to find out what the share price on Stardock
Corporation is or ask it what the weather is going to be like tomorrow. This example is the one that I imagine
regularly that makes me the most excited because I know it’s going to happen. A
combination of the Ender’s Game series and Snowcrash but in a wonderful
reality.
The point being that data
input will become arbitrary, data computing will become arbitrary and data
storage will become arbitrary. Instead,
everything will take place where “it most makes sense”. Why have the PocketPC of 2005 have to handle
voice recognition when you could just send the compressed sound over to a mega
server 2 hops away and have it do it there and respond almost instantly? Why store all your data on your PC that
could crash at any time if it can be securely stored (and encrypted) in dozens
of different locations in which it can be brought up on whatever PC or Palm
Pilot or whatever connected device you have on demand? Why should you waste time having to
configure your personal settings on any given machine when you could just
retrieve your personal settings from an identity agent that knows everything
about you and can set your preferences on any machine you log onto.
But what it means in short
is that Microsoft has embraced the concept of the Application Service Provider
(ASP).
Microsoft, and many others
including us believe that the next stage in mainstream computing is to move
away from creating products to creating services.
That means you’ll have a relatively
small number of service providers and a ton of content providers.
Consumers will move away
from going to the store and buy a box with a version of software in it and
taking it home and using and then a year later going back to the store and
buying the “upgrade”. Oh, stores aren’t
going to go away by any means, but they won’t sell products anymore, they’ll
sell snapshots of content which come with a service (an example of this is
Object Desktop 2000 – a snapshot of some of the content on The Object Desktop
Network in the year 2000 which comes with a 1 year subscription).
So they’ll subscribe to
something like Office.net for X dollars per month or Gaming.net or something of
the like and deal with software in that manner. Users will typically get many of these services with their
computer with the first year free and then the companies will try to get you to
subscribe after that.
“The new Gateway 2005
Itanium 2-5.25Ghz comes with a free 1 year subscription to Office.net and a 1
year subscription to DesktopPlus.net!”
Then after the year’s up, you’ll pay some seemingly low fee like $6 per
month. That’s only $48 per year which
is pretty good. But it’s great for
software companies because how does it work now? You get MS Office with your
computer and that’s the version of Office you use forever. Bought your last machine in 1996? You’re
probably using Office 95 (or pirating a newer version). Now, users will be paying $6 per month after
that first year. That’s $48 more per
year than Microsoft’s getting from that user now.
Of course, the really big
mega lucrative one will be the battle for the lack of a better term, the
ROOT.NET service. Remember the example
of your PocketPC (or Palm) talking to a remote computer which in turn talks back
to your PocketPC or maybe even bypasses that to talk to the Airline’s central
server? Somebody is going to be running
the services for that and that’s, I believe, Microsoft’s primary goal. They want to be the guys who take care of
all those services underneath the covers.
That remote machine it talked to could be your desktop machine at home
or it could be some massive cluster of Microsoft.net machines. And for that kind of convenience, surely a
nominal $9.95 per month to Microsoft.net seems pretty reasonable on top of your
standard ISP bill? Microsoft is hoping
so anyway.
So in case you’re confused,
let’s summarize.
Microsoft’s strategy is
broken into 3 parts:
1)
The various MS supplied
services like Office.net where you’d pay a few dollars per month to have the latest
greatest version of Office. New features and parts of Office would be stored
remotely, some would be cached locally.
2)
The ROOT.NET service,
the big enchilada that handles all the under the covers work for helping you
communicate from your various devices to each other and handle keeping all your
data and the data of everyone else integrated together. This is what Microsoft is calling the
Microsoft.Net “platform”. Obviously AOL
and others would like to be the ROOT.Net.
The battle of the giants will be there because just like in Highlander,
there can be only one.
3)
Third parties like
Stardock.net providing the services that Microsoft isn’t ready to conquer
yet. The Object Desktop Network (www.objectdesktop.net) and The Drengin
Network (www.drengin.net).
So instead of paying a bunch
of money in large clumps for products, you would handle it monthly.
Technology Bill of the
future…
MediaOne Road
Runner……………….$29.95
Microsoft.net……………………………………$6.99
Office.net…………………….………………..$6.99
McCaffey.net……………….………………….$2.99
Drengin.net……………….….……………….$2.99
DesktopPlus.net…………….…………….$2.99
Symantec.net……………….…….………….$2.99
Total: ~$56 per
month
But instead of paying $70
for Norton Utilities, you’d get that as part of Symantec.net. Heck, you’d probably get even more than that
and itwoudl only cost you $36 per year instead of $70. Same for your virus scanning, your games,
etc.
Well there’s no doubt in my
mind that this is the direction things will go. Otherwise Stardock wouldn’t have embarked on the same strategy a
full year before.
The titans will battle it
out for the root.net honor. I don’t
know who will emerge the leader there.
AOL has a lead in many respects in this area. It’s theirs to lose. But
does AOL “get it”? They might confuse
what Microsoft is planning with some sort of ISP type thing. Microsoft.net isn’t about being an ISP at
all. Their strategy could work without
anyone using MSN.
The real question is what
other companies could potentially be Root.net in this scenario. IBM, AOL, Oracle, Sun, Nokia, Qualcomm, Palm
Computing to name a few are potential rivals for this. It just depends on whether they understand
it or not.
But a few things must happen
for Microsoft’s strategy to really be a shoe in for winning the titanic
root.net battle: They have to become
the leader on the palm sized platform.
In other words, PocketPC has to beat the Palm Pilot. With Microsoft’s strategy announcement, one
can now understand why Bill Gates would seemingly rashly talk about how to
damage Palm computing by making Outlook not work with it. The palm platform is their Achilles’ heel. They have to control pocket devices in order
for their plan to definitely succeed.
Because the Root.net (Microsoft.net is their shot at this) could just as
easily be handled by Nokia or Qualcomm or Palm. And unlike past MS rivals, these guys aren’t a bunch of
dummies. If you’re in Europe reading
this, you can already experience some of this on your cell phones so this
entire article seems like a straight forward extension. So European cell phone companies could be
most definitely rivals in this because they can implement it into cell phones
today (we Americans lag way behind in cell phone technology because we have so
many standards that have to be supported).
This concept is the straight
forward path into the next generation.
That’s why in July of 1999, Stardock created Stardock.net as its
Application Service Provider with The Object Desktop Network as its first
service. And it’s proven very
successful. Incredible technology has
been created that wouldn’t have been possible.
WindowBlinds, DesktopX, WindowFX are amongst a plethora of incredible
things created that have never been done before.
We’ve identified a number of
areas that make a lot of sense for people to create services for. The challenge for smaller companies such as
Stardock is to make those bundling deals with the OEMs. You see, while
thousands of people might be subscribing to ODNT directly from Stardock’s
website, the way most people will subscribe to ASPs is indirectly through their
ISP or as part of the package they get when they purchase a machine.
Stardock.net’s announcement
in August of 1999!
http://www.stardock.net/media/pr_sdsnet.html
Article talking about how
software will provided as a service. Even mentions “office.net” as an example
(before office.net was even announced).
http://people.mw.mediaone.net/bwardell/article_softwaresubscriptions.htm
Stardock is a Midwestern software developer and application service provider. It is best known for two things – desktop enhancement suites such as Object Desktop with components such as WindowBlinds, IconPackager, WindowFX, DesktopX, etc. And games such as Galactic Civilizations, Entrepreneur, Business Tycoon.
Stardock Corporations home site is:
Stardock.net’s website is: