SocialLife to No Social Life

I think we need to have some kind of legislation around the content aggregators; especially the ones for mobile phones. The application "SocialLife" launched by Verizon yesterday aggregates 10 social networks (link of Mobilecrunch). There needs to be some market research done around such applications before they are launched or be atleast run through an "unbiased" focus group.

Firstly, how many different social networks can a single user be on? Secondly, has anyone done some analysis on the levels of battery consumption on these devices with such applications - GPRS/wireless usage on mobiles consume oodles of energy? Thirdly, many social networks are coming up/have already come up with their own mobile application; which means that the aggregators are trying to cash in during the extreme short term.

We have RSS readers, Yahoo Go, MSN mobile, Plusmo, Widsets, Newsgator - the list is extremely long. There are companies like MSN and Yahoo, who will survive the 'aggregator bust' because it is an extrememly small portion of their business and we have seen big businesses in the past cashing in on short term fads like this. Because they know they don't have much to lose and they can also soothe their loyal users by staying current with the fad. But the smaller companies need to rethink.

Aggregation is an easy way out : strike deals with content/service providers and then build the application to consolidate/interface with all providers. It's much easier than thinking of a business model on the internet and sustaining it. Internet is a place where you can launch any business idea and that's the story behind many rags to riches episodes here. But copying an idea and sharing a piece of the already mutilated pie will not take companies anywhere.

Google's vision : A step beyond

I read on some tech news today that the wireless vision is to untie cellphones from mobile service providers (here's the link). Now there are many countries where this service is already available and most of them are developing nations. Although the high end phones like iPhone, Blackberry are still tied to the service providers. Google has this vision of turning around the cellphone industry by untying the phone and the service. Vision, yes - but too stunted.

 

It is more of a business imperative for the phone manufacturers. But google : good start! And i will tell you why it's a good start. Untying services from products and letting users choose the service is the most mature hallmark of any industry. With software, gadgets, etc. it's more than applicable. I would take the google vision one step further.

 

Imagine that you purchase a laptop today with Vista OEM bundled with it. I know there are a lot of Linux lovers around who would also want to partition their machine to have linux too. Now i have the flexibility to do this in a laptop / desktop computer. Unfortunately, the mobile phone makers have not been able to harness this potential of the silicon chip for a phone. However, what if i like a Nokia phone but the Windows Mobile OS? What if i like a Motorola flip but prefer to have Symbian on it. Can i give the user that flexibility today or again going back to my 'business imperative'; can we make businesses rethink their strategy to on flexibility to user? The flexibilities we have currently are limited to say the least. We have still not gotten past the boardroom decision of unbundling the cellphone and the service provider.

 

I know we have a long way to go; but provided businesses are working consiously towards it, it can be a good vision for the "unbundling / untying" lobbyists.

Do we need Security suites?

The future of security suites is pretty bright; but again they currently seem to be doing the job of the operating system. In our lives too, security is never reactive – you don't need to be a ninja in real life or for that matter hire a bouncer because you have robbers at your place every day. If you are having robbers at your place every day – you need to leave that place. What i mean through this example is that security is a basic need and it should be a part of our system in real life. This security can be at your apartment or villa; or it can even be security that your county or town or city provides you. Security that you hire is either an add-on because of some specific need or a luxury because you are too scared of the common man.

Carrying this analogy forward; user specific security on computers is not needed if the system where they reside is safe in the first place. Operating systems should just not remain as a first layer of defense – we need to kill this thought process. They should be providing the next couple of layers also and not through a software like a security suite but by making the operating system identify threats just like anti-malwares, anti-spywares work. My question to all OS makers is simple – if you don't know how your system is going to behave under a threat - you don't know your system. I work in a products' organization and if i go back and tell my client that i don't know how my product is going to behave under a particular situation – I am out of business.

I am sure it is not too much to ask for from operating systems' organizations. It just goes to suggest that people who break these systems are smarter than people who make it. Also, the OS software are so unwieldy now, that putting in this behavioral upgrade is a hassle and will hamper other basic functionalities of the OS. All of this points towards a common conclusion – the operating systems were never designed (initially) that way. I do not want to vacillate into the area of feasibility or infeasibility of redesigning operating systems or whether there is an opportunity for some more players to enter. My communication is hinging on the fact that safety, security, privacy, etc. are concepts that should be a part of our systems. It may be too early to speculate for this to happen or too whacky to say so; but this is the OS of the future.

Business wise; the first mover may stand to gain a lot; if it packs in the usual features of an OS with proactive security in-built. It's also going to be a faster system – to say the least !

Security suites: Innovation is never far behind

I am an avid follower of security suites, because i think it's an innovative concept of bringing all security features under one umbrella. But remember that there are leaders in each of those segments – like Zonealarm in Personal Firewall, Kaspersky in malware & anti-virus, Webroot in anti-spyware, CA in anti-spam, Norton as a good silent firewall, Mcafee in wireless protection, etc. It's also good to see the Dr. Solomons transformed into companies like Network Associates & Symantec and now companies like Webroot, Kaspersky, Iolo, Checkpoint giving a tough run for Mcafee & Norton. But with competition comes innovation – and that's one thing i really like about competition.

One day someone thought of bringing all these security features together and 'security suites' were born. The birth of security suites did not however kill the internal competition. I thought the anti-virus warfare was atleast over with 'you are as safe as your signature updates'; until Kaspersky came in. Mcafee, Symantec, CA ; all did a good job at packing all security features together. With features comes in performance and that was amiss on most such products. That is beyond the point though, and i can talk about it some other time. Other companies saw the opportunities here and entered the fray. I am really impressed with Zonealarm with the way they brought in the concept of personal firewall to the common man's desktop. It was fast , it was effective , the concept was fresh and promised blocking dangers rather than handling them.

Mcafee, Norton and the other guys started adding stuff to their suites until they ran out of features to add. And again remember the competition-innovation connection. Then came the era of having add-on features like PC cleanup, start up program management, etc., in the suites. The demand for these grew with the issue of privacy coming in – 3^rd party cookies, Activex controls, etc. Now the line between privacy & security is not blurred anymore – they are one and the same.

As a result, we have System maintenance companies entering the security area – like Iolo and security companies entering the System maintenance area. And i must admit that both sets of companies have done a pretty decent job so far. This however has killed some of the erstwhile products like, Trend Micro Anti-spyware, Easy Remover, etc. which may be good for the companies to focus on their narrow portfolios.

And they have taken these steps due to competition and the good thing about competition is that it invites more competition. And then innovation is not far behind.