Book Launch - how to become information conscious

So, after several months in the making and a few last minute hitches sorting out the layout and finding a printer (I can highly recommend Imprint Digital), my book 'Through The Cloud' is now ready and can be purchased directly from us at http://www.nuvola.co.uk/Book.

It is on the surface a book about cloud computing because I feel this is a paradigm that is transforming the way we use technology. It's actually much more than this though: I have shared my experience of implementing software in businesses of all sizes to create a step by step method for business owners to realise the benefits that the cloud can offer largely by themselves.

The major insight that I have taken from thirteen years in IT consulting is that technology projects which are seen as some sort of 'magic wand' to solve business problems on their own invariably fail to deliver to expectations; projects which are grounded in solving real, quantifiable business issues and improving information flow tend to be successful.

The flip side of this is that those businesses who understand the role that information plays in their business, and put in place systems and processes to make it flow properly and extract the management data they need tend to be more successful. These 'information conscious' organisations are scalable and get the best out of their staff by providing them with the information they need to do their job.

'Through The Cloud' is a step by step guide to becoming information conscious, getting the best from all the cloud technologies available and using that as a platform for business growth.

Tomorrow's World

I just had an interesting morning speaking about mobile technology at the Service Management Expo at the NEC in Birmingham. Not only was it great to connect with a bunch of business people about how to use widely available technology to improve their business, but I also got to hear Maggie Philbin speak.

For those too young to remember, Maggie was a presenter on Tomorrow's World, a science and technology show that I watched avidly as a child in the 80s, and was one of the inspirations for me ending up studying Physics at uni and then working with computers.

It was great to hear not only her stories about showcasing the latest innovations to the country, but also her current work to get teenagers more interested in science and technology, by introducing them to technicians and engineers. The goal is that rather than thinking that X-Factor is their ticket to success, more kids will start to want to know more about the high definition TVs they're watching it on.

This struck a chord with me. We're in the midst of some of the most exciting changes in technology in generations, with impacts on society that we haven't yet figured out. In the UK, we've become too dependent on industries like finance and property, which is why we're in the mess we're in. Unless we can encourage the high-tech industries of the future, in 30 years time we'll be a world backwater harking back to the old days of Empire.

Not only are these changes in technology an opportunity for our teenagers, if only they can be inspired to realise it, but it's also a great opportunity for the nation's small and medium businesses. When I started in the industry in 1998, the software you could get to run a small business was clunky and limited at best. If you wanted powerful software, you needed to be a large corporation with a six figure budget.

This is no longer the case. With a huge range of 'Cloud' software starting at tens of pounds a month, scalable as a business grows, top notch software is within the reach of everyone. As this article describes, the largest proportion of the growth in this area is expected to come from the small business end of the market, and it's my view that SMEs can get a distinct advantage from this if implemented properly. That's to say, by understanding the people, process and information flow issues before committing to anything.

So what does tomorrow's world look like then? More connected and more efficient as far as businesses are concerned, as long as they get it right.

Service Management Exhibition

On Tuesday, I'm speaking at the Service Management Exhibition at Birmingham's NEC, which for those who don't know it is populated by those trying to sell stuff, especially technology, to the field service industry. I'm doing a talk entitled "effective field service technology at a reasonable cost". I'll be looking at how to make the most of the mobile devices that field operatives already have rather than investing in expensive new kit.
Apart from the rather cool fact that I'm following one of my childhood heroes on the podium (Maggie Philbin, more so for Tomorrow's World than Swap Shop), I'm really looking forward to the chance to connect with business owners about the exciting opportunities new technology has to offer.
So come down if you can, entry is free if you pre-register at www.servicemanagement.co.uk

The demise of HP tablets and the future of mobile

Last week, the big American PC and server manufacturer HP announced that it's to withdraw from the PC, Tablet and Mobile market and sell that part of its business.

In a way, there's nothing that surprising about this: IBM did a similar thing a few years ago, which is why you now see Lenovo ThankPads rather than IBM ThinkPads. PCs are a very low margin business.

What is interesting is that a little over a year ago, HP bought out Palm, the people behind the original handheld PDA (remember the PalmPilot?). Their main reason was to acquire webOS, Palm's platform for mobiles. The concept behind webOS was that the user interface should work in the same way as a web browser, and apps should be coded using web technologies. Palm believed that the future lay in using web technologies for other things, like mobile apps which should work just as well without a connection as with one.

In that respsect they were prescient. I've blogged about this before. A world in which, as an app developer, you only have to build one version (rather than ones for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia etc), and in which you sell your app and any content with it just with a URL and without having to pay a middle-man a cut is far more appealing than the currect fragmented scenario. Indeed, Amazon have thrown down the gauntlet by releasing their 'Kindle Cloud Reader', an e-reader which allows you to download your Kindle library to your web browser and read it offline. It works every bit as well as their Android and iPhone apps, allows them to circumvent Apple's 30% charge for in-app purchases and is very much a statement from an industry thought leader that this is the way of the future. And let's not forget Microsoft's plans for an HTML5/Javascript app store for Windows 8.

The reason HP have decided to ditch their investment in Palm and webOS is, paradoxically, the same reason webOS was such an innovative product in the first place. The world is moving towards web apps, so platform is less important. This makes it far harder to differentiate the product. And while we're still in transition from 'native' apps, iOS, Android and Blackberry all have much healthier app stores.

The problem is that Palm, the original innovators whose influence can be seen all over the way you interact with an iPhone or iPad, just didn't have the cachet of Apple, the sheer force of Google or even the slow drip that led to Blackberry's success. It's a market that is increasingly (despite the bumbling attempts of Microsoft and Nokia) converging on three platforms: iOS, Blackberry and Android. It's not hugely disimilar from the Mac vs PC situration that has dominated the PC market for years, you might think.

There's are a couple of important differences though. The first is that the emergence of HTML5 and web apps à la Kindle Cloud Reader that work offline means that the type of operating system that runs your tablet is less important. There will be no equivalent to "well we need to run XYZ so we need Windows". The second key fact is that while Microsoft was always a software vendor with an interest in locking people in to Microsoft products, the modern day equivalent in mobile, Google, is not. Google runs on advertising revenue, so you can be sure it will find a way that web app developers can include Google ads in their apps no matter what platform they run on. And Google also has a history of encouraging and leading innovation in the web arena. So the upshot of all of this is that, once the world has moved away from native to web apps, which I think will take about 5 years, there will then be the space for someone to come in with a really revolutionary design for a mobile operating system which takes full of advantage of all of this.

And what of webOS? Well unfortunately it will go the way of many products that were ahead of their time and couldn't gain market traction, and either find itself a small niche somewhere or be left to die. Which is unfortunate because it could have been well placed to ride the web app wave.

The Space Shuttle? It's been emotional

Am I the only one who felt emotional watching Atlantis lift off on the last ever space shuttle mission this afternoon? I remember watching the first launch as an excited 6 year old, went to see the test orbiter Enterprise on its visit to the UK when I was 8, and cried when Challenger exploded when I was 11. For a geeky kid, the Shuttle was an important part of my childhood. So watching the final launch with my 4 year old today felt pretty special, and I definitely welled up as Atlantis cleared the tower.
Looking back over the 30 years of the Shuttle programme, it's amazing how much has changed in the world and in technology. In 1981, who could have imagined that part of the contingency in the event of problems with the last mission would involve a Russian Soyuz, or that I'd be watching the buildup to the launch on my computer and writing about it on a touch screen tablet.
The Shuttle was definitely of its time and I guess I have to grudgingly admit that it's run its course - there isn't really the appetite for spending billions of public money on sending a glorified plane into orbit any more.
But I feel it has given us two key things, apart from the obvious scientific advances of things like the Hubble space telescope and the International Space Station. First, it's shown that mankind still has the curiosity to explore things for their own sake. That's how we produced science and engineering and got to where we are now, so long my it continue. Secondly, it's paved the way for the commercial exploration of space. Will that be the big area of technological change this century?

The broken US patent system is damaging innovation and needs to be fixed

Reading through the tech news sites this morning, I noticed yet another patent spat, this time between Samsung and Apple, who are each trying to claim the other has stolen their intellectual property and to block each others' imports into the US.

This is yet another example of large technology companies trying to beat each other up with patents of questionable value. One of Apple's patents is about the basic design of a touch screen phone, which rather seems like Ford trying to sue Volkswagen for selling a car with four wheels and an engine. In another development, a consortium of companies including Apple and Research in Motion (the people behind the Blackberry) has just agreed the purchase (to the tune of $4.5bn) of a portfolio of patents from the bankrupt Canadian telecoms giant Nortel.

The original idea of patents was to protect inventors and entrepreneurs, so that they were safe from having their ideas stolen by large companies. What we now have is the opposite. Small companies can struggle to innovate because some large company or patent troll (companies who buy up patents and then launch legal actions based on them, who don't actually make anything) will threaten them with a law suit which they'll struggle to fight. In the end we have out-of-court settlements in which the big boys pay each other money, and all that happens is that lawyers get rich. We end up with ridiculous situations like the fact that for every mobile sold which runs Google's Android system, a few dollars is paid to Microsoft, who have always been the antithesis of Android's open source roots and certainly haven't made any contribution to the core Linux operating system which it's built on. These patents often only apply in the US, but given the size of that market they have a global effect.

The USA seriously needs to address its patent system. I would suggest two measures. First, in order to enforce a patent, a company must have made and sold a product which used it within the last 5 years. This would get rid of the patent trolls, while protecting businesses who actually innovate and use their patents. Secondly, and this would be much harder to get past the big corporate lobbyists, companies over a given market capitalisation should not be able to enforce patents. This would mean patents protect small and growing businesses who actually need the protection, not large established players trying to cement their domination of a market.

Tablet wars and the shape of things to come

So, HP has just released its first tablet computer since it bought Palm and webOS a year or so ago. Generally it's had good reviews, and is apparently almost as slick as the iPad. The main complaint is that it lacks the number of apps that Apple, or indeed Android, have available.

What's really interesting though is that it is basically one big web browser, with some really nice effects thrown in. This means that apps are written, like web applications, using HTML and Javascript.

Why should you care? Well, the implication is that an app made for webOS should work with just a little modification in a normal web browser or other system built around web browser principles, which is exactly what Microsoft appears to be planning if the previews of Windows 8 are anything to go by. This would mean that apps would run on anything and the vendors have to compete on the quality of their products rather than how much software runs on them, as Microsoft have certainly done in the past.

Won't it be refreshing if you can run the same app on Windows, Apple, Android, webOS or whatever just as it doesn't matter if you're reading this blog in Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari? That's the future of computing...