Riots and the Big Data Problem

The recent riots in London

Back from vacation, I was catching up on a few recent issues of The Economist. The riots in England have obviously made headlines in the UK magazine and one particular issue - very much related to content management - caught my eye.

The rioters were acting in plain view of the cameras and they were coordinating their actions using the BBM (BlackBerry Messenger). The UK is one of the countries with the highest density of surveillance cameras in the world and so the police have apparently plenty of video material and BlackBerry traffic to analyze to identify and apprehend some of the trouble-makers. Turns out, the data is not just plenty - there is too much of it.

Indeed, the data volumes are so huge that the police hardly stand a chance to ever analyze it. Strapped by tight budgets and austerity measures, the UK police have barely the resources to prosecute the most severe crime and there are no resources left to dig through the gigabytes and gigabytes of surveillance data.

This is an interesting “big data” problem. Lots has been written about big data lately. The availability of detailed data tracking for every transaction and every move opens up new opportunities that just a few years ago were unthinkable. Analyzing and understanding the data patterns leads to new types of services and efficiencies that savvy companies have already begun to take advantage of. And more is to come.

That’s all great for structured data which is relatively easy to mine and analyze using computer programs. The challenge comes when the data is unstructured, such as text messages or video feeds. Unstructured data is much harder to analyze programmatically with reliable outcomes and speeds that can keep up with the torrential pace at which the data is being generated.

Sure, content analytics are already a well established discipline and many vendors from IBM to OpenText have content analytics offerings today. IBM even made a lot of headlines earlier this year with its Watson project - a supercomputer specialized on natural language analysis and reasoning... and on the TV game Jeopardy. Watson was a unique system designed for a specific purpose and even Watson would have had a hard time identifying faces of perpetrators from hours of riot video footage.

That job is much harder and the technology is by far not as mature. Content analytics have a great future in light of the big data problem and it will be fun to watch as the technology matures over the next few years. In the mean time, let's hope the UK police apprehend the key trouble makers from the recent riots by whatever means they have at their disposal.

What's Missing in Google+

Google’s foray into social media, Google+, has been busily adding users and receiving great reviews for its innovative design and capabilities. Everybody is raving about circles, the cool picture albums, and the way Google integrated its other properties. After having attracted over 750 million users, Facebook is now finally feeling the heat. Or is it?

Google+ has quickly attracted millions of users, enjoying what’s perhaps the fastest growth in history. However, when I look at the type of communication on Google+, I mostly see my professional ‘friends’ posting links to their own blog posts and articles. I do the same - we have all quickly jumped aboard since we understand the power of social media and we use Google+ as a free advertising tool. In fact, out of all the people in my Google+ circles, the only one posting something personal is Sergey Brin.

There is one fundamental challenge that Google+ has and it is not the features or design. It is a great tool but it doesn’t connect me with any new users. So far, I have been only connecting with the same folks I am already connected with on Facebook or on Twitter. And since we all are already connected on those networks, we continue using them since they work just fine.

When I started using Twitter after I was already on Facebook, I was able to ‘connect’ with many new people. The connections are of different type. I am connected with people like Richard Branson and Pete Cashmore on Twitter even if they don’t know me and care about me. Twitter makes it easy to connect with such people since it allows unilateral connections via “following”. On the other hand, my friends on Facebook know me and I know them - it is a bilateral connection where both sides agreed to connect. There is a difference between those two tools which is why I am using them both.

Google+ is not different. Sure, I have joined just like everybody else who’s actively using Facebook or Twitter is going to do. Curiosity drove me there and perhaps the urge not to be left behind. But it will be hard if not impossible for Google to throw enough new features at me to make me move at the cost of Facebook or Twitter. To do that, one of two scenarios would have to occur:  

1. I would start using Google+ actively if all my contacts would use it as their primary social network, at the cost of Facebook and Twitter. That’s a hard one to achieve since both Facebook and Twitter are thriving and continuing to add users and - more importantly - traffic. This is the challenge with social networks - according to the Metcalfe’s Law the networks become more valuable as more users join in. But that means that a network replacing another one becomes only useful if it reaches a critical mass of users. And “users” means not people who have signed up but people who actively engage.

2. I would start using Google+ actively if it allowed me to connect with new users with whom I am not already connected with on Facebook or Twitter. There are plenty of people I know who are not on Facebook or Twitter and there are plenty of interesting people out there I don’t know at all. Google needs to find a way to connect me with those folks. That’s what Facebook and Twitter accomplished due to the different type of connections they allow. Find a way how to engage the social media skeptics through some new, must-have services. Or find a way to suggest connections with people who could be interesting to know through a new type of connection. But don’t copy Facebook and Twitter.

Of course there is a third scenario possible, if either Facebook or Twitter stumble. They could become sleezy and offensive like MySpace did or nerdy and lame like what happened to Second Life. They could implode due to lawsuits, privacy invasions, availability issues or talent drain. They could go public and start making irrational moves under the pressure from Wall Street. All of that is possible. But on its own, Google+ needs to make happen one of the two scenarios above. And that’s not happening right now.

HP Kills Palm

In April 2010 - not even 18 months ago - I wrote my comments about the then announced acquisition of Palm by Hewlett-Packard. Back then, I was speculating about five possible scenarios and I guess I was wrong. The scenario number 6 has occurred and HP pulled the plug on the Palm devices and probably also on the webOS mobile operating system today.

This move doesn't come as a big surprise. Yes, it is unusual for a company with the kind of resources that HP has to give a project that little time to prove itself - particularly a relatively recent $1.2 bln acquisition. But since the launch of it's new webOS based devices just a couple of months ago (in February 2011), it became apparent that they were flopping in the market place. Just earlier this week, it was reported that Best Buy sold less than 10% of the 200,000 Touchpads they ordered. Clearly, the mobile devices market is becoming a market space where you either make it big or go home. HP is leaving now.

That begs the question: how will this move reshape the mobile market. Apple is today clearly the player to beat. Until this week, I thought that Google was the a number 2 (or even number 1) but their acquisition of Motorola announced earlier this week has potentially put Android on a new trajectory and I see plenty of challenges ahead. But today, Google is certainly one of the top 2 vendors in the mobile market place.

The position number 3 is heavily contested. Microsoft wants it really bad and they have made a lot of good moves so far. Their deal with Nokia was received somewhat skeptically at first, but it makes much more sense since the Google/Motorola deal. Microsoft now stands a good chance to take over the spot number 3 and perhaps even number 2 in the foreseeable future, particularly should Google mess up with Motorola.

The position number 3 is currently occupied by RIM and RIM appears to be under a lot of pressure now. RIM has missed its numbers in the June earnings announcement and has been losing market share at an alarming pace recently. Yet, RIM and its BlackBerry franchise do have an impressive installed base and an access to the enterprise market that other vendors envy. That makes RIM a likely target and there is plenty of possible suitors about.

So where does that leave HP? Well, they may decide not to participate in the mobility games any longer just like their big rivals IBM and Oracle. HP's new strategy appears to be following IBM's example by divesting the PC business (which was also announced today) and focusing on "higher margin growth categories". Both were acquisitions, by the way - remember Compaq (2002) and EDS (2008)?

If HP decides to participate, it has three options:

1. Embrace Android which would make them a Google partner. That's less likely now as Google's Android strategy is at crossroads and since HP also announced the acquisition of Autonomy today which puts it on a collision course with Google in the enterprise search space.

2. Go with Windows Phone which would continue HPs long standing partnership with Microsoft. This is quite a feasible scenario but HP appears to be wanting to get out of the hardware business today. By the way, how ironic is it that while HP is getting out, Google - the ultimate Internet company - is getting into the hardware business by acquiring Motorola?

3. Acquire RIM which would fit HP's focus on the enterprise market. As I said above, RIM is likely to be in play soon and HP could indeed be one of the suitors. HP would probably not shy away from the high price tag of $15-20 bln or more - they have spent big money like that in the past. And the RIM acquisition by HP appears less problematic than by Microsoft, Google, or some of the fence-setters such as IBM, Oracle or Cisco.

In the end, I dare to predict that HP will stay out of the mobile devices market. If they want to be more like IBM, they are better served by focusing on services and remaining hardware agnostic. Too bad about Palm, though, as that was a good piece of technology. I still remember when US Robotics shipped the first Palm Pilot back in 1996 - the first successful personal digital assistant (PDA) which is how we called smartphones before they had the 'phone' feature. Well, an era has come to an end. After the demise of Nokia's Symbian, there is yet again one less contender in the mobile race. It is a four-horse race now with Apple, Google, Microsoft and RIM and there are only three (or less) spots left!

Why the Google's Purchase of Motorola Could Be Great News for Microsoft

Google surprised many this morning by announcing its intent to acquire Motorola Mobility, the mobile device manufacturer that has recently created by the Motorola split. At $12.5 bln, Google is spending some serious change - not that they can’t afford it - which only underscores the importance of mobility today and going forward. The stakes are high and so it is not a surprise that the key contenders are jockeying for positions.

So what are the consequences of this move? Google has been touting its Android operating system as open and open sourced and it was very successful in attracting many different hardware manufacturers including Samsung, HTC, LG, Dell, and, of course, Motorola. By buying Motorola, Google will need to convince the other vendors to stay with the Android OS which may be tricky now that Google is a direct competitor. Sure, Google sold its own smartphone in the past - the Nexus - but that was just a tactical maneuver to get Samsung and co. motivated and the phone was discontinued soon after they started shipping. Now with Motorola, Google is firmly in the competing corner.

None of the vendors licensing Android have been using Android exclusively and they all have other options. To stay with Android, Google will have to convince them that there is a solid Chinese wall between Motorola and Android to avoid any channel conflict. Google doesn’t have any credentials in that. Google will have plenty of struggle to combine its highly profitable advertising business with the low margin, highly competitive hardware business from Motorola and Motorola isn’t a small bite to swallow. Controlling both the software and hardware could give Google a leg up over the immensely profitable Apple franchise which in a way validates Apple’s closed and vertically integrated strategy.

The Motorola acquisition may motivate other Android phone makers to look for alternatives and the most obvious one is Microsoft. Many of these vendors are already shipping a Windows Phone based product and the Google acquisition of Motorola is likely going to send a strong breeze into Microsoft’s sails. It could possibly also give RIM a little bit of a reprieve, even though RIM is not ready to license out its own mobile operating systems (yes, they have two - the BlackBerry OS and the QNX). Similarly, Apple will not likely license its iOS to other vendors but should enjoy a boost in marketshare while the Motorola deal is being sorted out.

Some pundits call for Microsoft to acquire RIM and/or Nokia in response to Google’s move. I suggested the Microsoft-RIM marriage a long time ago but since the Nokia deal, that acquisition is less likely. In fact, Microsoft is standing strong right now as a dependable operating system vendor from whom all the device manufacturers can safely license the mobile OS. All of a sudden, that sounds much more attractive than licensing from the hard-to-predict Google. I think that the status quo is working really well for Microsoft. And even Nokia, having bet the house on Windows Phone must be breathing a sigh of relief.

Google actually claimed that the primary rationale behind the Motorola acquisition is the pile of patents that come with the deal. Well...whatever. I think that the patent wars that are currently raging between Google, Apple, Microsoft and others are not helping customers and that they are very detrimental to the industry in general. The patent laws may have to evolve but that could be a topic for another blog post. Besides, why is everyone claiming that their pile of thousands of patents is better than the other guy’s pile? Since when are patents sold by the pound?

To sum it up, the Motorola acquisition is a very risky and pricey move for Google who’s finding itself on an unfamiliar ground with hardware and who’ll have a lot to prove to keep Android open. I also believe that this deal has opened the door for Microsoft who’s suddenly looking like a safe bet when it gets to licensing a decent mobile operating system. It will be fun to watch how this is going to play out.

The Cloud and the Asymmetric Patriot Act

USA PATRIOT Act of 2001

There have been numerous articles recently about cloud-based companies and their policies in regards to the Patriot Act. Most recently, Dropbox and Microsoft Office 365 have generated headlines when the press found out that their end user license agreement includes clauses that basically state that the company may have to hand the customer data over to the law enforcement authorities under certain circumstances – such as to comply with the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (in short USA PATRIOT Act).

Microsoft drew an additional dose of criticism as their policy apparently implies that they would repatriate and hand over data from European customers, even if the data resides on European soil. That, in turn, would be in violation with Europe’s data privacy and safe harbor laws which raised many eyebrows. Unlike the United States, the Europeans take personal privacy much more seriously. For example, an employee’s email belongs to the employee in many European countries and not to the company as it is the law in the US. By the way, am I the only one who finds the whole notion of cloud data residing on some country’s soil a little paradoxical? Since when do clouds care about borders?

My take is that the problem might not lie with the cloud based companies and their frivolous attitude towards their customers’ data. I believe that the challenge lies in the Patriot Act itself. The Patriot Act has been signed into law in October 2001 as a response to 9/11 and it was extended in May 2011. The Act grants the US government sweeping privileges to access private data in case of suspected terrorist threats. The US law enforcement agencies can apparently get your private data by requesting access to say Dropbox servers because suspected terrorists might be allegedly using Dropbox to plan their activities.

This kind of law would seem to violate the 4th Constitutional Amendment which protects citizens against unreasonable searches – law enforcement is supposed to get a court order and not many European courts would ever allow this. But the Patriot Act has been passed in the wake of 9/11 and anything to protect the US citizens from terrorists has a higher priority than protecting their civil liberties.

This reminds me of the speech that Sun co-founder and former Chief Scientist Bill Joy gave at TEDtalks back in 2006. Joy spoke about the asymmetric threats in the scary world we live in: “We can’t give up the rule of law to fight an asymmetric threat and we can’t fight the threat the stupid way we are doing because a million dollar act causes a billion dollar damage which causes a trillion dollar response which is largely ineffective and almost certainly has made the problem worse.”. If anything, Joy’s speech was understated as the 9/11 response has reached several trillions by now. The Patriot Act is part of that response and the cost keeps rising.


The effectiveness of the Patriot Act has been questioned many times but that’s not my point. The terrorists aren’t stupid and they know about it and they know about plenty of other data sharing services that are not run by American companies and are thus not subject to the Patriot Act. My point is that the generic and sweeping authority that the Patriot Act gave to the US government is scaring the good guys away from the Cloud.

At least 99.99% of people are not terrorists; they are people like you and me and we get all nervous about using online services that do not offer us sufficient privacy. Many countries have a culture and laws that demand a much higher privacy protection than the United States.  The customers are already worried about the hackers who could compromise their information. And now, even the government is snooping in my data?  Perhaps, my data is better protected if I use the online services of a company based in the Germany or Canada - countries that are not subject to the Patriot Act?

The US economy needs stimulation. We shouldn’t be scaring away the privacy-loving Europeans. The United States could easily be known as the country where your data is the safest – attracting business from the entire world. But that is not what people think today. Right now, the secure data hosting business is going elsewhere.

The press is crucifying US cloud companies for the alleged vagueness in their end user policies. But what if those companies just try to do business in an environment that effectively forces them to have such clauses in their policies? Is the media barking up the wrong tree?

I know that there is a lot of good that came out of the Patriot Act but I suggest that in the era of cloud computing, it may need to be reviewed and possibly amended.

The New Apps Frontier

Apple seems to be running circles around its competition right now. Just as it looked as if Android might be gaining enough market share to put some pressure on Apple’s, Apple turns one record quarter after another. Sure, Google is gaining market share but the only profit from Android-based phones appears to be made by Google’s advertising business.

Impressive are not only Apple’s revenue and profits but also the diversification of their portfolio. Not only does the iPhone account for more than half of Apple’s revenue, the iPad contributes now more than the iMac which is not doing too poorly either. And yet Apple has another trump card in their pocket which they will pull when the time is ripe - the Apple TV.

It hasn’t been widely reported, but the Apple TV is powered by iOS - the same operating system that is used in the iPhone and iPad. That suggests that many of the hundreds of thousand of apps available in the App Store today could run on Apple TV too. Not all of them will work, of course, as the user interface, resolution, and other capabilities of the device are different. But popular apps such as weather, news, RSS reader, maps, charts, calendars, and even a browser are apps that would be useful today on a TV screen.

Apple TV actually already provides a small number of apps including Netflix, YouTube, Flickr, a photo viewer and a music and video player. Presumably not much is needed to open the device to developers and I suspect that the existing development tools and skills are highly applicable. It is also likely that Apple will add a mouse or the touch pad to Apple TV which would open the door for many more interactive apps.

This will be a massive source of additional revenue for Apple and also a huge competitive advantage. Developers are already realizing that building apps for iOS gets them way more bang for their investment buck than building for the other mobile operating systems. A single iOS app runs on all devices including iPhone, iTouch, and iPad. In contrast, many developers are today complaining about the fragmentation of the Android market where an app built for Samsung Galaxy may or may not work on the HTC EVO. That’s why most developers still start with iOS support before moving on to Android - at least that’s what Flurry, Inc. recently reported.

Apple is not the only vendor pursuing this idea - all the game consoles have the same ambition. My Nintendo Wii supports a couple of apps including Netflix. Microsoft demonstrated their Xbox 360 with Lync-based video conferencing at the recent Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). Intelligent devices connected to a TV set are going to be the next app frontier. And Apple has an incredible advantage as their TV device runs on a well tested operating system with thousands of existing apps.

Practical Gamification Use Case

Gamification is a buzz word making the rounds lately. The idea is very simple – drive user adoption and employee engagement by turning the use of enterprise software into a game. Deep inside, we are apparently all gamers and can’t resist playing. It starts already in kindergarten when we used to collect stickers on a chart – whoever had the most stickers got a reward – I win, you lose. 

Now, we are applying the same principle to the workplace by adding game elements to enterprise software. We can earn points and badges by sharing information, contributing to discussions, completing assignments, passing tests, or closing deals. What used to be a performance chart on the manager’s office wall is now a leader board with employees leveling up all the way to a Champion or Grandmaster level. 

I must admit, it is pretty addictive and the amazing thing is that it seems to work. Inspired by the world of video games and more recently by social games such as Foursquare, gamification is invading the enterprise. I have recently spent a little bit of time with the IT developers at OpenText who have built our new gaming application called the “Leaderboard”. Leaderboard is not an OpenText product; at least not yet. This is OpenText as a customer building a custom application on top of the existing commercial offering. That commercial offering happens to be OpenText Pulse, a social media product that the OpenText Content Server customers can simply add on top of their existing deployment.

I've quickly completed a couple of tasks get a decent ranking

The team designed the Leaderboard not only to drive internal adoption of Pulse but also to stimulate the desirable employee behavior. Different social interactions earn points – posting a comment, liking someone else’s comment, sharing a document, etc. By collecting points, users can level up to different levels – from Newbies to Masters. There are also points available for non-Pulse activities such as correctly adhering to the iterative development process (IDP) or through learning more about our products by watching a training video and taking a quick test.

The team actually used the concepts from a Bartle Test to design how different users can approach their path to earning the most points in a way that best suits their personality. Richard Bartle defined four types of game users: Achievers, Explorers, Socializers and Killers. This concept has since been used by many game developers and so our team designed the Leaderboard with something to offer for each gamer type. Being a friendly Canadian company, they have renamed the gamer types into something a bit more politically correct.

James Knight, Trevor Sharpe and Quinton Roberts - the Leaderboard development team

The results are more than promising. The Leaderboard has been the buzz for weeks on Pulse and when it had gone to beta, available to the IT team only, outsiders like me had to beg to be invited (Google doesn’t have a lock on scarcity marketing tactics). After just a couple of weeks of the beta test, the IT level of active participation was well above 60% which is significantly higher than the current average in the rest of the company. And the users are truly engaged – many competing with fervor to beat their co-workers. The “side effect” is more communication, employee engagement, and expertise sharing which is what Pulse is all about. As the OpenText CIO Steve Hunt told me: “It's like cyber crack .... They’re hooked!”.

Why We Acquired Global 360

Yesterday, OpenText announced the acquisition of Global 360. As we are expanding our market reach into the business process management (BPM) market, Global 360 adds a complementary set of technologies to OpenText’s portfolio and strengthens the OpenText partnership with Microsoft. With the combination of Metastorm and Global 360, we are now the largest provider of BPM solutions for the Microsoft ecosystem. The BPM solutions complement our existing information governance and archiving solutions for SharePoint and Exchange. But what’s more important, Global 360 increases the critical mass of process management focus inside of OpenText.

The OpenText ECM Suite already included solutions for Transactional Content Management (TCM), which is a close cousin of BPM. OpenText has long provided offerings for scanning and imaging, our own optical character recognition (OCR) engine and fax server (RightFax). Many of the OpenText solutions offered in the SAP and Oracle ecosystems are based on TCM – Accounts Payable, Employee File Management or Travel Receipts Management, etc. And of course, OpenText provides the secure compliance infrastructure that many transactional solutions require.

Not long ago, OpenText acquired Metastorm which added BPM capabilities together with cloud-based process design, business process analysis (BPA) and enterprise architecture (EA) software. Now, Global 360 brings additional capabilities particularly around dynamic case management (DCM), cloud-based process discovery and process analytics and reporting.

The Global 360 acquisition is unique, though, as it allows OpenText to not only expand its offerings, but also reach a critical mass needed to establish itself as a serious contender in a new market. This is not a minor matter. Acquiring companies successfully is not easy, and for a billion dollar vendor like OpenText, acquiring a smaller company could easily result in “swallowing it up” without much tangible impact. One way to prevent this is to fold the acquired organization into an existing group that sponsored the acquisition in the first place.

That happens, for instance, when a company acquires a smaller vendor to accelerate its technology investment or to add services capacity. Such was the case with the recent OpenText acquisition of weComm. OpenText already had a mobility group that needed to address the challenge of cost-effectively supporting multiple mobile platforms. weComm addresses that problem and was naturally combined with the existing mobility group.

When a company branches out into an adjacent space, however, there may not be a group that would be a logical home for the acquired company. In fact, the acquired company is expected to become such group. By buying Metastorm in February 2011, OpenText made a move into the BPM market. According to the analysts, Metastorm is a leading player in BPM which represents a natural expansion opportunity for OpenText. After all, many BPM solutions depend on content.

And now, by combining Metastorm, Global 360 and the existing TCM solutions, OpenText has one of the broadest product portfolios and one of the largest and most experienced teams in the world of BPM. The acquisition not only puts us on the BPM map, it makes us one of the strongest players in terms of market share, number of customers, and market presence. And, the BPM products and people won’t go unnoticed within OpenText as the business process management DNA now represents a significant portion of the company.

That’s why we’ve acquired Global 360.

Did You Just Tweet That?

I've spoken at a conference recently and just like most conferences lately, the discussion turned inevitably to social media at some point. Such conversations are always fun since I enjoy the diversity in people's opinions - from absolute addicts to the cynical denialists.

But at some point someone asked me if I was tweeting during the conference and I of course admitted that yes, I did. I like to tweet at a conference for multiple reasons:

1. Repeating a key point in writing helps me to remember it. This is Notes Taking 2.0, even if Twitter doesn't make it easy to go back to your notes after a while.
2. Sharing some of the key points of wisdom allows me to contribute to the community of my followers - those who didn't make it to the conference can get some of the key messages.
3. And then there is the personal branding aspect - tweeting about a particular session shows that I care about the subject and makes me part of the club and attracts like-minded followers.

Now, the other question that was raised is how polite is it to tweet while I am at a conference. Is it impolite to the presenter to see people staring at their iPhones or iPads? Is it socially acceptable to my co-workers or friends who are there with me? Am I just not paying attention?

Hobnobbing with Tony Clement

Recently, I was on a panel at a RTNDA conference (Radio and Television News Directors Association) and on the panel after me was no one else than Tony Clement, Canada's federal minister of industry. Mr. Clement is very much in touch with the Internet and technology and he's a very frequent, interesting and authentic Twitter user. Unlike many other politicians, he doesn't have a PR staffer do it on his behalf. Tony Clement tweets himself.

At the RTNDA panel, he was tweeting straight from the stage. I was in the audience and I've exchanged a couple of tweets with him as he was right there on the stage. And you know what, you can't accuse him that he wasn't paying attention when he was being asked a question.

Tony Clement (3rd from the right) tweeting while on a panel. And why not?

With social media and mobility, our culture is evolving. The mobile device is much more personal and intimate than a laptop which was always seen as a work tool. And working while listening to others is always a little rude (yeah, yeah, I like multitasking too). But using a personal communication device in the company of others is becoming much more acceptable.

I still don't think that it is acceptable in a one on one conversation and I certainly don't get away with it at the dinner table. Some of it needs to stay that way. But we don’t need to look far to see the future. Asia has been far ahead of North America in mobility and so is Europe. And we've all seen the pictures of packed trains in Tokyo with every passenger staring at their mobile device. While the culture in Japan might be different, mixing the in-person and the virtual social engagements will be becoming more and more the norm.

Is Device Convergence Happening?

A few days ago, a report by Pew Internet came out that revealed a surprising statistic about e-readers. According to the data Pew presented, e-readers such as Kindle and Nook have reached a 12% penetration among the US adult population. That’s actually not bad even though it is far behind other devices such as mobile phones (83%), laptops (56%), and MP3 players (44%). But this number is way ahead of the tablet penetration which is still relatively low with 8%.

That effectively means that the iPad didn’t at all manage to kill the Kindle. I must admit, that when the iPad first arrived, I thought it would mean the end of the Kindle. You can read books on the iPad and Amazon even provides a very good Kindle reader app for iPad. And after all, how much does Amazon really care about the Kindle? They make money no matter what device I read their books on, right?.

I suppose the e-book readers are doing so well because they are really good at what they have been designed for. They are single-purpose devices optimized for their job. For reading books, some of their advantages include the screen that allows reading in bright sun light, the ease of e-books dowloading and, my favorite, the light weight. All the tablets I have tested so far are too heavy for reading in bed. Kindle is featherlight with its 241 grams (8.5 oz) and it makes reading in bed easier than with a paperback.

This is really begging the question about convergence. Are we going to end up with a single device that can do it all or are we going to keep a multitude of devices? Convergence is definitely appealing, if nothing more than to eliminate the clutter of power chargers and adapters that I complained about while packing for vacation last summer. But having the right tool for the right job is unquestionably not a bad approach either.

Are we going to dump the e-reader and read on an iPad? Maybe, if it becomes lighter and learns how to handle the glare. Or maybe the e-book readers will add the apps and blur the line between tablets and e-readers.

But how about the convergence of other devices? Do I no longer need a watch because I have a smartphone that can tell the time? Well, I am really attached to my mechanical watch. Are we going to throw away the GPS and use the iPhone instead? Yes, it works, but the dedicated GPS is still a little easier to use while driving. How about the laptop that I keep schlepping around together with my iPad? If I had a keyboard and a mouse, I could perhaps get rid of it. Couldn't I?

Well, I don’t know what the answer is but I do know that the key is going to be the user experience. The simplicity and compromise-less user experience - software and hardware - will determine whether or not a particular device will converge. If a device doesn’t give me the right experience, the convergence won’t happen, even if the functionality is there.