Daily Archives: October 22, 2007

The Telco Soviets

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Lovely WSJ column by Walt Mossberg…

Suppose you own a Dell computer, and you decide to replace it with a Sony. You don’t have to get the permission of your Internet service provider to do so, or even tell the provider about it. You can just pack up the old machine and set up the new one.

Now, suppose your new computer came with a particular Web browser or online music service, but you’d prefer a different one. You can just download and install the new software, and uninstall the old one. You can sign up for a new music service and cancel the old one. And, once again, you don’t need to even notify your Internet provider, let alone seek its permission.

Oh, and the developers of such computers, software and services can offer you their products directly, without going through the Internet provider, without getting the provider’s approval, and without giving the provider a penny. The Internet provider gets paid simply for its contribution to the mix: providing your Internet connection. But, for all practical purposes, it doesn’t control what is connected to the network, or carried over the network.

This is, he says “the way digital capitalism should work”, and he’s right. But there’s one area in digital technology where it doesn’t apply — the mobile phone industry.

A shortsighted and often just plain stupid federal government has allowed itself to be bullied and fooled by a handful of big wireless phone operators for decades now. And the result has been a mobile phone system that is the direct opposite of the PC model. It severely limits consumer choice, stifles innovation, crushes entrepreneurship, and has made the U.S. the laughingstock of the mobile-technology world, just as the cellphone is morphing into a powerful hand-held computer.

Whether you are a consumer, a hardware maker, a software developer or a provider of cool new services, it’s hard to make a move in the American cellphone world without the permission of the companies that own the pipes. While power in other technology sectors flows to consumers and nimble entrepreneurs, in the cellphone arena it remains squarely in the hands of the giant carriers.

The Soviet Ministry Model

That’s why I refer to the big cellphone carriers as the “Soviet ministries.”

It goes on, and gets even better. This is a great op-ed piece.

Time Out Pad

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Yuck. Google threw up this ad in a Gmail message about the pressures that kids are under nowadays. The blurb reads, in part:

Young children need to learn when their behaviour isn’t acceptable. To do this, many parents use the time-out or naughty step technique, making the child sit quietly (usually on the bottom step of the stairs) for a few minutes to calm down and reflect on their actions.

In practice it’s not always easy. How do you time a time-out, when you’ve got so many things to do? And what happens if the child gets off the naughty step during the time-out? How does the child know when the time-out is finished?

Time Out Pad ensures effective time-outs and encourages better child behaviour.

Key Features

* Simple to use pressure pad with built-in timer, helps parents monitor time-outs
* Adjustable timer from 1-5 minutes
* Visual countdown and audio function
* Includes free ‘Positive Parenting’ guide
* Suitable for children from 2 years upwards

How the Time Out Pad works
Simply set the built-in timer to the desired time-out duration (usually one minute per year of the child’s age) and sit the child on the pressure sensitive pad.

If the child gets up before the end of the programmed time, an alarm sounds to alert the parent or carer, and the countdown will pause until the child sits back down.

Presumably the Premium version gives the kid a mild electric shock if s/he moves.

Microsoft bends the knee to the EU regulators

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Well, well. Telegraph report:

Since the ruling [by the European Court of First Instance], Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer has been in almost daily contact with Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for competition policy.

Following these intensive discussions, Microsoft has agreed to change the way it provides rivals with information that allows them to write programmes that mesh with Windows.

Microsoft will now make information available to open source developers, with licensing terms that allow every recipient of the resulting software to copy, modify and redistribute it in accordance with the open source business model.

In a statement today Ms Kroes said: “The Commission’s 2004 decision set a clear precedent against which Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour could be judged.

“Now that Microsoft has agreed to comply with the 2004 decision, the company can no longer use the market power derived from its 95pc share of the PC operating system market and 80pc profit margin to harm consumers by killing competition on any market it wishes.”

Microsoft has agreed to slash its requested royalties for a worldwide licence, including patents from 5.95pc to 0.4pc – less than 7pc of the royalty originally claimed.

The software group has also abandoned its demand for a royalty of 2.98pc of revenues from software developed using licensed information…

Later: This from GMSV:

Apparently, the key to reaching a resolution was to clear away all the lawyers and turn to personal diplomacy. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes became fast phone friends with daily calls over the past three weeks, and the deal was sealed in person over dinner at a little restaurant in the Netherlands (Ballmer had the crow en croute). “I sincerely hope that we can just close this dark chapter,” Kroes said later. “I feel a bit sad because it took so long, it took so many years, and during those many years consumers suffered from the fact that Microsoft didn’t go along with what the Commission asked it to do.” Microsoft mumbled something about continuing “to work closely with the Commission and the industry to ensure a flourishing and competitive environment for information technology in Europe and around the world.” There remain some outstanding issues, including how much of that accumulated fine the EU will impose, and in case Redmond starts backsliding, Kroes said, “Microsoft should bear this in mind. The shop is still open, I can assure you … there are a couple of other cases still on our desk.”

The message is meant for more than Microsoft. The EU continues to show a willingness to jump in where U.S. regulators won’t, and that has to be a sobering thought for companies like Intel, which looks like it’s getting a pass from the FTC, but has until January to answer EU charges that it violated antitrust rules by selling its chips below cost to strategic customers, among other things.

That “crow en croute” crack is nice.

The future of personal computing

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According to Nicholas Carr, it’s captured in a single simple equation: Google plus Apple.

The future of personal computing was divulged by Mr. Eric Schmidt, the chief executive officer of Google, on March 23 of this year during an interview with Wired’s Fred Vogelstein. Vogelstein asked Schmidt why he had recently joined Apple’s board of directors, and Schmidt responded:

“Google’s architectural model around broadband and services and so forth plays very well to the powerful devices and services Apple is doing. We’re a perfect back end to the problems that they’re trying to solve. And they have very good judgment on user interface and people. They don’t have this supercomputer I’m talking about, which is the data centers.”

At this very moment, in a building somewhere in Silicon Valley, I guarantee you that a team of engineers from Google and Apple are designing a set of devices that, hooked up as terminals to Google’s “supercomputer,” will define how we use computers in the future. You can see various threads of this system today – in Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, its dot-mac service, its iLife and iWork applications as well as in Google’s Apps suite and advertising system, not to mention its vast data-center network. What this team is doing right now is weaving all those threads together into what will be, for most of us, the fabric of cloud computing. (This is so big, you need at least two metaphors to describe it.)

Damn. I’m going to have to get an iPhone…