Friday, December 23, 2011

Android, iPhone and Windows Phone but why Winpho do not have a chance

Microsoft: One of the wonderful company in terms of business sense. They still generate loads of Cash. They are upbeat about earnings. It's multi legged Gorilla. It has OS which ubiquitous similar to UK in 18th and 19th century until few years. It has web browser and it is inseparable and servered more than 90% of netties until 5 or 6 years back. It has Golden touch interms of enterprise look at MOSS (Sharepoint) and Office products. It enjoyed more than half (50%) smart phone market share until few year back.
 Apple: That guys are pure awesome. If you go back carefully in 2007 and study the market of mobile devices and it's capabilities and experience (including windows mobile) you understand why this guys are standing where it is standing now. They are Game changers. If it is not that disruption happen on mobile, they are still a guy in music.
Google: They know what they do. They have so many failed attempts and they fall quickly and get back quickly. Most of their home grown services except few bruised them time and time again. But they made always beautiful acquisition which includes Ad sense to Android. They know the cloud and they made it so that service need not bother whatever load it brings with them.
Free: Sure. Free is beautiful thing. People like free things. Free thing attracts people. Even if it is not free, considering something sells low cost in the place of market that dominated by premium cost, will be going to supre hit. That's what time and again market proved. HP tocuhpad, Amazon kindle fire etc.
Android: Android started free but it has great team which includes carrier to device manufacturer. Once you get the software and service as half good as something best in the market people will see. Considering the experience of existing one, if you provide better than existing predominant one and half as good as the best in the market, yes you will hit the right place with right time. If it is free, so many jump into, and once you get the momentum, be it bad press or good going to be pushing factor. It develops familiarity and momentum snowballs into formidable force. Unless otherwise some game changing product blocks it, it will continues to roll.
Internet: It is everything. Whatever you buy, it needs to talk some way into internet. And barrier to internet is pretty low, which does't need or force it have windows or macs or linux. Or mobile or what not.
Windows: Apple proved windows can be diluted with product with right value as ecosystem. Mac, iPad, iPhone, iTouch, AppStore and iTuens. Android proved and become juggernaut. And above all it is internet which is going to be universe for anything and everything going to determine or going to dilute the mode by which internet is being accessed, if it is TV, people look for smart TV, if it is phone people look for smart phone. That smart factor's central nervous system is internet. Assume that, if browser is disabled in windows or mac, no body will buy (sorry at least 50% will not not buy) them. So major thing which will be part of buying decision is internet. And past 6 to 8 years, internet started diluting platform dependency in a scale that big vendors like Microsft failed to recognize it.
For Microsoft, it is always 2 to 4 years late in the game: They launched Zune, after seeing iPod peaked out and failed to innovate windows mobile. Later, seeing iPhone, they thought it will not make it, may be purely because, their policy against buying competitor product. Once they saw, iPhone's demand and Android's momentum, it was already too late but they launched windows phone with moden touch. But those vendor moved on to iPad and tablet. Microsoft has just blinked.
So, these are summary of wrongs which Microsoft did,

  1. Zune in response to iPod -- probably it should have been windows phone with those things natively integrated 
  2. Windows Phone to iPhone -- it should have been tablet, if they succeeded based on step 1, but atleast windows phone with tablet at this time would have stopped some bleeding Other attacks on Office suites, email and search are big topic in itself. 
  3. Totally microsoft suffered because of they are not open and not listened to various signals they saw over many years. 
  4. Though Steve Ballmer monkey danced and yelled "developer, developer, developer" but it sounds like developer left long past and yelling merely vanished in vacuum --- Apps, Ecosystem with Development, distribution (market) etc and upcoming road-map like connected devices, TV, infotainment etc makes Android strong ahead of windows phone. 
  5. Looking at how Device vendor embraced snugly to mine some Gold on the path or tunnel created by Apple, it is going to be long moving target for MS. 
  6. Current technology like Touch, Voice and icon based user interfaces advancement made underlying platform branding is less important where in in Desktop or Laptop it always make sense to follow the leader. So brand value of Microsoft as OS leader won't help them seal or make any dent in the mobile area, there is no reuse in terms of existing learning for those system. And again apps which neutralized those leader advantage.  
So for past 10 years MS entered late to Game and exit yearly.  I am seeing how IE lost share and after all bruise started  to overhaul IE. Slightly different story goes to Zune, WinPho, Search etc (these things followed or reaction to their lost focus not entering and innovating early into market).

 If you think of UK to Microsoft, you will be right that it is going to be, within couple of year, they are like nice player and going to be kicked out of everywhere (similar to CES 2012).

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Google's Pure Android Tablet -- why it is must and why it is THE ONE

Tablets: It is definitely game changer in the computing history. This is because you can't imagine computing devices from $50 (yes, it is fifty dollar tablet) onwards. It exposes information and content consumption and gamify way of many things (including education and information) to many people. iPad to Chinese/Indian low cost tablets is truly needed for varios segment of people.

 Lesson learned from Hp Touchpad and Kindle fire: HP touchpad fire sale made it to second most popular device for sometime. Kindle fire under $200 made it most popular Android tablet ever. If Amazon can crack it open with Amazon prime (Video, Audio and Shopping) why can't Google repeat it?

 Google Services 0) Level 0 (zero) cloud, every service is originated out of Google cloud
 1) Video --- Youtube is premium example of apps in any tablet be it iPad or under $50 tablet, it is owned by Google. Bake Ads with prime time movie streaming which linked into big screen TV (I did not mean Goole TV) but seamless bonding to TV screen would enable Google to try many options here (Visual Ads, Video, Cable etc pops into mind). So invading into living room
 2) Audio --- Google has it's presence am not sure how big, but it is starting. It is not about how big now but how it can be blend into the system so that other similar service provider become unnecessary to end user. Provide nice simple interface and utilize user profile, preference to serve better.
 3) Photo --- yes blend Picasa, it is already homogenized and pasteurized into bigger Google
 4) Voice --- I am seeing voice routed through IP network and one day it is going to native to web and Google already acquired and eaten more and it can be nicely backed
 5) Friend and Social --- Google plus, I think google is grown into Goole + and hence I call it Google. Google is nothing but public information hunting and gathering Ads to serve user. It may be activities or location checkins or driving directions or gmail or what not
 6) Messaging real or email --- no need to go further than Gmail/GTalk or hangout or activities or blending nicely into one
 7) Maps and Navigation --- One of the best one out there and living in Android DNA
 8) Wallet --- NFC and Google Wallet
 9) Sites, Code, Earth etc looks like noise compare to above things Motorola buying is one of the perfect shopping Google made to realize seamless integration of aforementioned services + others and blow away competitor. It seems Google Plus is Google in near future but when Google builds it's first tablet, it is going to be Android that unifies Google's services into THE ONE.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

OS X Lion is unlocked iPad

I tried Mac OS X Lion and it is kind of direction PC suppose to move on.
These are the mail agenda for new iPadish mac,
1) Simplify things and use more intuitive user inputs like multi touch gesture ( + voice ) to interact with system.
2) System needs to hide file explorer or hunting among the tree of folder to locate things.
3) Home screen should be your app store for your regular usage, yes that's what you go to frequently and start what ever apps you want to consume or produce. This is user level app store and user governs what they want and it is single door to his/her system. I feel it is right direction for apple to go by embracing the iPad model.

I looked at NY times skimmers it's navigation is kind of borrowed it from gestures (touch) of Macbook air (Lion). It feels better and evokes psychological feeling of native to the OS as OS itself based on gesture inputs.

So what is the difference between iPad and Mac? In macro level there is not much to normal user except few reminiscence like ports and file access until it is fully cloud enabled. But one glaring exception is Mac is unlocked. You have a freedom to use your system as you wish to the certain extend. It feels like unlocked iPad and it is unlocked iPad.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Macbook Air 2011 SSD performance

I just did a adhoc performance testing on Macbook air 2011 on both 11 and 13 inch systems.
It looks like Apple's implementation uses SATA 3 6gbps (or mSata 6gbps).
It supports TRIM command. Model no is APPLE SSD SM128C.

Here is the link
http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=541610
http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=541614

I think clearly Macbook air is feature Macbook Pros.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Response to Intel's http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2011/01/26/desktops-and-laptops-on-life-support/

Intel Jeff is telling Laptop and desktop will survive the holocaust
But Desktop/Laptop is wounded and wound is going to be bigger and bigger, eventually going to take place of mainframe computer. Is the Laptops natural evolution of Desktops? Is the Tablets natural evolution of Laptop? What causing Laptops bigger, loosing batteries sooner, heavier -- all those things affected its portability? Is that Keyboard good enough to interact with? Is there better interfaces available? etc etc
It looks like interface to interact with such system may not be keyboard in few years. In my opinion aged keyboard and mouse based interface is going to be replaced by Touch, Voice and motion based one (What Intel's partner MS calls NUI -- natural user interface). But it is just taking shape. It will take few years or decade but eventually to blog or type or anything fit at that time frame and interact with the devices, I just talk to voice aware things/editors -- it is natural evaluation and I think Intel would accept that. We are not sitting on pentium era, we are on fusion era where CPU + GPU in single package. Most people would have booed but eventually it happen. I understand Intel is not in that race but I hope they catch up soon. Moor's law is playing big role in the interface evaluation too -- look at iPhone to multi touch track pad, multi touch mouse and new Apple's motion aware keyboard patent and MS surface, MS kinect is huge hit and MS plan to integrate it with windows and going to support ARM based proc. I really mean it and we will see it within 10 years.

What about big monitors?
He is also referring use of big monitors but looking at projection technology and flexible OLED -> AMOLED (Galaxy S, Nexus S etc now -- though not flexible to fold :)) can roll out to satisfy biggie needs. Holography also possible successor waiting to give immersive experience.

ARM is new king of the hills with great commanders like NVIDIA, TI, Qualcom etc thats what CES 2011 proclaimed.

The main point is iPad proved laptop and desktop is being cannibalized -- Yes read the 2011 Q1 call and what Tim Cooks said about cannibalization -- They boldly accepted it because they have device which is doing that but for Intel, it is ARM based multiples cannibalizing it. This is shivering news for Intel when I see my executive pestering to get access internal corporate network from iPad/tablet. Either he is saving Intel as it is not on lime light or Intel needs to fire him for the lack of vision, oh.. thats what AMD did to its CEO(Dirk Meyer).

All these new evolution needs new app to fully utilize the feature, demand low power, light weight, ever connected, instant on devices -- base foundation component is processor -- most importantly low power processor and hence market will be opened up for new players.

By the way, I am typing this blog using latest Intel Core i7 2720qm, 8 GB memory and SSD running Ubuntu 11.04 today's build but I definitely know I am ready to switch to right kind of device soon. The fact is my first computer is not desktop, it is Laptop. May be for next generation, first computer is going to become smart phone and next big one would be tablet. I don't need biggie unless I do programing, fire up Eclipse or XCode or Visual Studio I need better CPU equipped one. But what if IDE evolves in phase with tablet? thats what iWork did, thats what Microsoft One Note did. This will happen to photoshop and other heavy apps. Nvidia Tegra 2 is driving full HD to external monitor and tv -- promising quad core in Tegra 3 or 4. Evolution is playing there also.

NoSql for Enterprise, here is some of the questions needed proper answer

Here is my list; this is based on my experience working with CouchDB, HBase and others

What is the tools/infrastructure enterprise use to scale their RDBMS?
What kind of strategies used to avoid (SPOF) due to DB failure?
What are the options available for DB2? SQL server? or fill your DB of choice
What is the possible trade off?
What happen to ACID properties to this situation?
What are the issues with using better commodity hardware?

This is very important as quest for solution should be based on existing problems and you need to understand that better to explore which would fit snugly.

What is their point of view on CAP?
What kind of applications can be easily developed, hard to develop using NoSql?
Is MapReduce recommended over SQL? What would be the productivity loss/gain?
How will it fit into virtualized environment? What is the impact of virtualization in terms of performance?
What are the potential issues when system goes away with mathematical relation model to document/Key value oriented model?
What is the theoretical limit on data size, data growth better served by NoSql?
Can NoSql be used to make backend/data services by pool of the hardware (commodity) by exposing select/update/delete/archive? And hiding RDBMS aspect from developers?
What is the roll of DBA in the NoSql world?
How is the transactional model like 2P commit/distributed commit fit into NoSql?
What is the impact of tools/framework/reporting framework developed specifically RDBMS in mind?
Enterprise security or product security impact using NoSql?
What would be the threat for NoSql from patent bullies like Oracle/Microsoft/others?
What is the perspective of vendors like SAP/IBM/Oracle and what is their take/offering on NoSql?

This questions will make you understand why nosql.

Monday, January 24, 2011

My Thoughts on Html5 to become Html

My Thoughts on Html5 to become Html:

It is interesting. Few weeks back Google chrome engineer blogged that version number in chrome is mere indication of snapshot of development and doesn’t make sense to follow release cycle. That’s making sense as Google chrome evolved with in 2 years far better browser in this world (including enterprise security featureJ). It is evolved from version 3 to 10 in year 2010 alone. In place of version numbers, they place a channel to download based on how technical you are,
1. Stable : more matured and production ready
2. Beta: Matured but not much tested
3. Dev: Matured and being tested
4. Canary: Unstable and should not be used as regular one, new feature without or less testing and may break

Besides,

Beginning of this week we saw Html5 logo to promote html5. Tim oreilly said, “html5 is not just a Technology any more, it is a movement”, Yes in order to address fragmented app development using proprietary APIs for multiple devices and multiple OSes, HTML5 is right choice. This is standard. It addresses every desktop, mobile, tablet, connected device (Nintendo DSI, Sony PSP/PS3) to TV, Car and new OS itself (ChromeOS) as well as great development platform for something not yet imagined.

So what is the deal? HTML5 editor Ian Hixie is telling Html5 is going to be called Html. And stable snapshot would be with W3C and living document with WHATWG. After all basic requirement to access new Html feature is through browser and when they say html5 is html, and then it is Html. I think this also going to push browser developer team to say “yes I support Html J” No more hiding behind “Html5” is not yet ratified, not matured etc etc.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Ubuntu 11.04 performance (Core i7 2720qm - sandy bridge)

System: Core i7 2720qm,
Memory: 8 GB ram,
Graphics: ATI Radeon 5570M 1 GB Video memory and
Storage: Vertex 2 200GB ssd.

I could not run Unity as it has some issue with Sandy bridge, I needed to disable intet VTx, through BIOS setting, to install Ubuntu otherwise i couldn't install.

hardinfo -r

Ubuntu 11.04 alpha 1 benchmark:

Benchmarks
**********


CPU Blowfish
------------

-CPU Blowfish-
This Machine 1400 MHz 1.969
Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz (null) 26.1876862
PowerPC 740/750 (280.00MHz) (null) 172.816713

CPU CryptoHash
--------------

-CPU CryptoHash-
This Machine 1400 MHz 662.236

CPU Fibonacci
-------------

-CPU Fibonacci-
This Machine 1400 MHz 2.039
Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz (null) 8.1375674
PowerPC 740/750 (280.00MHz) (null) 58.07682

CPU N-Queens
------------

-CPU N-Queens-
This Machine 1400 MHz 0.518

FPU FFT
-------

-FPU FFT-
This Machine 1400 MHz 0.927

FPU Raytracing
--------------

-FPU Raytracing-
This Machine 1400 MHz 3.249
Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz (null) 40.8816714
PowerPC 740/750 (280.00MHz) (null) 161.312647

Ubuntu vs Windows 7 -> Ubuntu

I got Intel Sandy Bridge Core i7 2720qm with 8 GB ram, HP pavillion 2 days back. The fact that, I am a Mac user and experience with Win 7 is really bad. Microsoft really don't know what is experience is. One such example is Track Pad, it is called touch pad (synaptics). It supports multi touch what a shock? I could not use it and it spoiled my experience -- like unsafe roller coaster ride. I need to hunt where mouse point is, scroll approximately and need to do hard with your finger to move again to where you want. I uninstalled lots of craps including Norton antivirus and I installed MS security essentials. It is long story.

Well, I know I am going to work with ubuntu and just check whether Win 7 can lost long and satisfy other needs so I can live with VirtualBox 4 or VMPlayer. But still windows 7 is windows except some lipstick like Aero and animation.

I installed ubuntu 10.10, in my surprise, out of the box, it blows the water out of win7. It is smooth, elegant and as near good as Mac. Again, this is first shot and first few minute experience with Ubuntu. I still remember "Mark shutterworth" that they want to create a better than Mac experience, they did with moving controlls to left side from right etc. But it is good.
It has all ingredients like openoffice (libreoffice in 11.04), media player, email client and FIREFOX.

Adobe Flash, Skype and other day to day seasonings are good at work. Ubuntu is really maturing at desktop end.

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Death of TV Remote?

Context Television remote is one of the heavily used parts, it may be tops that list.
So, few months back Android started integrating youtube app which controls what to play in the TV.
VIZIO, the TV company, demoed mobile phone and tablet which has IR blaster inbuilt in it.

Next question is how it is going to eliminate?
Android app is controlling it from Server and it just does it for youtube -- it is not much useful except for youtube. Vizio's one is actually bakes remote's infrastructure into bolie and tablet -- it is nothing new but just convergence of TV remote functionality into mobile just like Camera into mobile devices.


I am not sure when TV integrates wireless capabilities and other niceties into it would eliminate IR itself. May be zigbee or bluetooth would just needed to completely get rid of remote.

There is sony iPhone APP which controls some of the Bluray player from Sony.

I am actually looking for iPhone app to control my PS3.

So all of them leads to 3 possibilites:
1) Integrating existing IR blaster into new mobile devices, like VIZIO, and it works for all the TV
2) Apps like Sony's Bluray player app to control the device -- which uses network stack to talk to device but not through IR blaster
3) Specialized apps like Android youtube one
Will it going to completely eliminate Remote? It is not going to think so (because eco system is vast and disparate), but at least some end, mobile is going to play some roll there.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Is Microsft being erased gratually???

Slew of Android tablet and Android phones at CES 2011. Is it telling something about Microsoft? It is clear that momentum is with Android/Google and it looks really tough for Microsoft to turn that momentum towards them. All OEM who are strong pillers of Microsoft is now lunching with Google. Same OEM and partner strategy worked for Windows so far, will the same being repeated by Google. This time with free licensing cost and earning money indirectly by providing services. If Google is able to bake Google doc properly for Tablet, I think, it is going to be death blow to Microsoft.
Microsoft
*loosing windows licenses to free Google/Android
*loosing office licenses to Tablet/Mobile devices which is replaced by Google docs and third party apps
*ultimately Bing also in question here

Folks who are going to lead the technology market, youngsters of current generation, would be big problem for Microsoft as those are much entrenched by non-ms platform.

I think they are like sitting on old laurels like old handset manufacturer who lost out due to failure to innovate quickly and sticking on old school of thoughts. MS is surely turning around like IE9, WP7 etc but momentum is not with them, they are following likes of Apple and Google.

What is the effect of $9.5 billion dollar RnD spent by Microsoft?
* unreleased courier tablet
* unreleased surface
* delayed wp7
* loosing market share of Internet explorer