In search of the ideal IP device

Once more I am using Plato as a philosophical reference to show why people are wrong separating PC-based and Mobile-based applications.
When considering the elements that go together to make the PC and the mobile, we need to recognise the general concept, rather than a specific instance of it.
So, what is Skype, for example? It is an application that allows people to communicate over IP. There are various restrictions in terms of quantity or quality of available bandwidth or processor power, but there is no conceptual difference between Skype running on a laptop with a WiFi interface, and Skype running on a mobile phone.

For Skype to be truly mobile, all that needs to happen is for the software to be available on the mobile terminal (phone) and an IP network of sufficient quality needs to be available.
Some people cannot separate the mobile phone from the mobile network operators in their minds, but a mobile phone that connects over WiFi or Wimax or FLASH-OFDM and makes a VoIP/Skype call is still a mobile phone!

Martin Geddes asks the question whether a 'whole generation will suckle at the teat of the mobile carriers', the answer is 'No'. The device will enable connections to different networks (we already have quad band phones!) and the customer will decide if and when to connect to a particular one.
They can choose the network because the applications run on any (stupid) network, and their access is separate (perhaps even municipally provided) from the applications and tools that they use on the device.

You may be saying that if this was the case, we'd all have PDAs already? But people don't buy PDAs because they're too big and the applications people want to use (voice, messaging) are more difficult to use on them. When a device arrives that is fashionably elegant, and can efficiently and simply allow the applications people want to use, and is mobile then things are going to get very interesting.

It could be a while though, as I was saying exactly the same thing back in 2000! If any mobile operators want to know what they should be doing in order to retain their customers and still make money when the voice and messaging is gone, I'm available at very reasonable rates! :)
Or hire Martin, I have a feeling he knows the answer too!

Google and Skype?

There's a lot of talk about Google buying Skype, and I've said before that the partnership would be a powerful one, but, as Om Malik says, 'Google doesn't need Skype'.
Google could develop their own for a lot less than it would cost to buy Skype, and I'm not convinced that Skype has yet built any significant barriers to entry, other than having a good piece of software!
If there was a Skype ecosystem and a whole lot of community activity around Skype, then there would be a reason to get a hold of it, but for now it only excels on a technical level, and even that is due in large part to GIPS, and the Peer-to-peer capabilities from Kazaa.
The question is, 'How sticky is Skype?' and the answer, as far as I can see, is 'Not Very'.
I use Skype as my primary IM and I use it to save money on international calls, especially when travelling, but there is nothing I could not easily take with me when something better comes along.

There is a change happening in our communications and all methods of communicating are converging to a single platform. It's not about who has the best Voice, or the best IM, or Video, it's about who has the best Presence.
Skype is winning right now, but we are still in the infancy of this market and I suspect the best is yet to come. Will it be Skype that evolves in time, or something new that blows the others away (like Skype did previously).

Maybe Google will take Presence to the next level... I look forward to it.

UPDATE: Before I could even publish this, Google go and release Google Talk and their new desktop software.
As I don't have a gmail account, I can't use all the features (!!?), so now I really want a gmail account.
Is Google Talk the thing that will blow Skype away? Doesn't look like it, yet, but it has huge potential and Skype is not evolving nearly quickly enough to put distance between itself and the competition.
I agree with Stuart Henshall, Skype needs to open up, quickly. The Skype ecosystem needs to broaden and allow much more commercial activity to take place within the SkypeNet. I have my doubts about whether the architecture will easily allow that, without a serious increase in server side capacity. Now that Google have released, it will be an uphill battle to prevent churn.

If I was a betting man, I'd bet on Google to come from the rear (based on what I saw, they are still lagging) and pull away in the home strait.

It's good to share...

I recently returned to the UK from Thailand for an extended break, and went to my father's house in Edinburgh. I was not looking forward to the prospect of dial-up internet and tried to persuade him to re-subscribe to broadband (he previously stopped it because it was 'too expensive and I end up spending whole days browsing the internet').
The internet seems difficult for people from an older generation due, in my opinion, to a less developed ability to discard useless information, or perhaps it's a greater respect for the written word, that is probably misplaced in the internet generation.
Anyway, as I opened my laptop and prepared to connect the dreaded phone lead to the modem socket, imagine my surprise when my wifi card told me there was a 'Netgear' network in range. 'I wonder....' . I quickly tried to connect and obtain an address through DHCP and, lo and behold, I was connected. My Skype icon went green and I was once again surfing broadband!
There was no security to speak of, no MAC address limitations on DHCP, no WEP, nothing. Perhaps they just want to share...?
If the proprietors are reading this blog (rofl: Ed), then I'd just like to say a big thankyou! Now I am phoning completely free, I just hope my benefactors don't have a volume-based charge.
It got me thinking that I might be able to configure my wifi connection at home in Thailand to allow Skype connections only, after all, it's good to share

Takeover rumours for Skype....

This story came up a while ago, but seemed to gain widespread acceptance over the weekend (as opposed to being some hack's conjecture!).
I don't know if NewsCorp really wanted to buy Skype for $3 billion or not, but it told me one thing. These stories start in the blogosphere and either die or attain credibility through reinforcement by the community.
It started me thinking about Skype and acquisition. I'm with James Enck and think the only takeover of Skype that makes sense is Google (although Microsoft had better try and stop that happening if they know what's good for them!).
I had another thought though; Why don't Skype buy an MVNO? Just a small one, no 3G, but one with a lot of numbers...
The benefits of this would be pretty nice:
- They could sell a product like SkypeInM, but with a mobile number/SIM card
- Direct mapping from SkypeId to mobile number
- Integrate SMS in chat (because any mobile can reply to your message seamlessly)
- Put Skype on Symbian and sell the Nokia N91 for WiFi/Mobile convergence (ring your Skype Id and it will also ring your mobile) until wifi is ubiquitous.
- Generate a lot of income for terminating SMS to their SkypeInM userbase
- Reduce their mobile call rates

Or if you are an unsuccessful MVNO, why not partner with Skype and do this?
I suppose the IPdrum product gives you all of the above, but would be a 'poor mans choice'. With IPdrum it's all done by connecting things in a chain on the user end, and relies on your PC being always on. The interest in, and profile of, IPdrum shows that there is a market.
What do you think?

Futurology or 'I started a joke...'

You've got to be a bit of a masochist to talk about the far (i.e. beyond next year) future where technology is concerned. People laugh at you, and bring up some of the times you got it wrong at inopportune moments. So why am I writing another set of lunatic predictions for the future of technology? Well, why do people climb mountains? because they're there.
A friend once told me, 'You're so out there, you're off the planet' but he did say that many of the things I say do eventually come true!
However, as Isaac Newton said, 'If I have seen further [than others], it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants' - so all my mates need to take some responsibility for this! ;-)
On with the show, as they say...

What will the device of the future look like?:
- It will be mobile and it won't be tied to one network
- My thinking is that it will perform the same kind of functions as current router/firewall boxes
- Various 'user interface' devices will communicate through it
- It will be the guardian of your 'identity'
- Battery technology will allow virtually constant use.
- It will collect information about your current 'state' to varying degrees, and reflect this to others at your discretion (e.g. heart rate, limb motion, temperature, facial expression, geo-position, activity). Extension of current Presence.

What about the network?
- The network will be multiply-ubiquitous, with communities, both national and international creating their own infrastructure for exclusive use of the community.
- It will, in general, not be monitored by government agencies, after all, the snail mail system and voice communication never was (generally), why should electronic communication be different?
- It will be universally stupid, i.e. it won't care what you are doing, just where you are doing it.
- EVERYTHING will be IP. Telecoms networks, IN, old style PBX will be distant memories
- The network will be self-healing or self-optimising - I know, goes against the 'stupid' phrase, but I'm not talking about services, just volume and 'hops'. i.e. if a lot of traffic goes between 2 segments the network will attempt to reconfigure itself to make that traffic faster, not real time, but over time with some inertia.

What about the services?
- Total Immersion will be common, where virtual events can be created and people can attend virtually. Super-conferencing
- Games using the above will become equivalent to real world activities.
- Virtual Personal Assistants will manage many aspects of our lives (this is an old idea, that has become unfashionable, but I think it will eventually happen). It comes down to trust (I'll post some more on this later.). If I believe what my assistant says then I will act on it, if I feel they are working for some other entity, e.g. the network, then I won't. Too many sites on the net currently purport to make booking holidays/travel etc easier, but in the end they don't give the customer the best deal, often these 'assistants' rip us off!
- Cash will disappear! (now there's a bold statement!) As connectivity becomes ubiquitous, the need to exchange physical cash will disappear. Online transfers will be more secure and cheaper.
- I agree with Tomi Ahonen that translation will become real-time to and from any language (and that communities will be the most important thing in terms of the development of the 'net')
- Voice communication will be free on a Person2Person basis!
- Personalisation of services and interactions will be essential, but will be defined by the communities, not dictated by marketing departments of large corporations.
- Again, with reference to Tomi and Alan Moore, communities will become brands, where the acceptance of a service or not within the community is defined by the community.
- 'Library' services for delivery of content will exist and communities/viral marketing will determine what is consumed - the 'Long Tail' will be immensely important in the success of a piece of content. The playing field is also much more even, where anyone can be creative and produce content and be recognised for it. No intermediary is necessary to publish a novel or a song or video.
- Transport will be automated, where I can get into my car and tell it where to go, or perhaps just tell it where to go and then only virtually go. E.g. Go to pick up granny, or go to collect the indian takeaway. Might make the postman look kind of interesting!?

But will it be Google, Microsoft, Nokia or Skype that provides the platform (it won't be Vodafone!) ?

Skype it simple!

I was reading the Skype forum to get an idea of what the main causes for complaint are related to the software, and I was surprised!
My broad take from the large number of entries was the following :
1) Useability : Skype desperately needs some enhancements in contact management (particularly)
2) Sharing the wealth : There has to be a way to enable some revenue sharing on a transaction basis, to encourage more 3rd party use.
3) Quality: Calls to mobiles are inexpicably crappy, and they're also overpriced! (by the way, it costs more to phone a Swedish mobile than one in Tanzania!)
4) Billing: More than anything, people want to pay money to Skype to get credit and SkypeOut.

Everything else is already announced as 'coming very soon' e.g. Call Forward, App2App API.

It seems that point 4 is being addressed, if painfully slowly, and I'm not sure that point 3 is within Skype's control (though they should be asking some hard questions to their interconnect partners).

The thing is that the useability changes are fairly minor, and this is probably their main problem.
Many products I have worked with suffer from release budget cutback, or Cuckoo syndrome. What happens is that a BIG list of desired changes is put into the pot and prioritised. Then some estimates are assigned to the features and after a lot of discussion a set of features to be developed in the next release is arrived at. Inevitably there is a biggy that is very important and very costly to implement, so the PM(s) look around for savings when the biggy consumes more than it's allotted share of the budget. The small changes get pushed out, because the focus is on development (at that point in the cycle), not user value.
I can guess that the Cuckoo for Skype is Video, and the small changes like contact groups are the smaller eggs that get pushed out.
Thing is, I think this is a mistake and it comes out of traditional release management approaches that tend to create monolithic budgets and ineffective teams.
What you need is disruptive development. Put together a crack team of people who really KNOW the code, and give them a list of UI nice to haves, but no budget or weighty design document. Chances are they will have done them all by next Tuesday, if they like the ideas.
If they don't like them, then maybe they needed more consideration anyway.
Assess the changes once they are done, and agree to any refinements. Release it and monitor community opinion, if the community don't like it, then change it! Quickly!
Not all changes, even if small, fall into this category, but there are a lot that do, and there is no need to get them bogged down in all the release planning overhead.
But remember, if you're going to use JFDI, use TFDI afterwards, otherwise you're just f****d.

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