The New (Mobile) Desktop

About two or three times a year, I have a "d'oh!" experience, one where something hits me so strongly that I wonder how I missed it.

Generally speaking, these are trends in the industry that I was only paying casual attention to, but -- suddenly -- I realized that something big was going on here, and it really mattered.

I had a "d'oh!" experience this week while travelling in Europe, visiting with a few telecommunication providers.

And I finally started to really, really grasp what this mobile thing was all about.

Maybe you already "get it", and I'm the slow one here. 

If that's the case, I apologize in advance.

We're Spoiled

In terms of personal IT infrastructure, many of us are fortunate enough to have convenient access to all sorts of computing resources. 

We have high speed networks at home, at work and at play.  We have access to multiple computers -- desktops, laptops, etc.  All this stuff is just everywhere we go -- we don't even really think about it much.  At least, I don't.

As a result, our concepts of computing, desktop, information and so on are colored by this view.  We expect to have a 24" flat panel monitor, a dual-core microprocessor with at least 1Gb of RAM, 32 million colors on our display, not to mention hundreds of gigabytes of storage and a broadband pipe.

Those of us in the IT industry just get in the habit of working with this stuff all the time.  And we tend to come up with products and solutions that are targeted for this kind of environment, and this kind of IT user.

We're missing the boat.

The Alternative IT View

Today, there are roughly 6 billion people in the world.  And most of them won't have ready access to this level of tech setup for quite a while -- if ever.  Their world is different in terms of IT.  And I think many of us in the industry need to better understand understand who our new users will be.

I'm sure you know this, but wireless mobile infrastructure is usually the first networking technology to appear in developing countries.  And the IT device that most everyone can afford first is the cell phone.

Your "desktop" is now about 1.4" diagonal.  Your color palette and resolution is very modest.  Effective bandwidth might be measured in "K" rather than "M".  Storage and processing is equally modest.

If you're an IT provider, you might want to give this platform some thought, especially if you're wondering where your next billion or so customers might be coming from.

But if that's not enough to convince you, there's another demographic you might want to pay attention to -- it's the entire next generation of developed countries, as well.

If you've watched 15-to-25 year olds carefully, you realize that they vastly prefer anything they can do on their mobile device.  They carry it with them everywhere they go, and they put it next to their pillow at night.  It's their digital lives, so to speak.

And they use their "personal IT" very differently than I do, for example.

Let me share a personal example.  A while back, we were debating different phone plans with my 17-year old daughter.  There was one plan that had 500 text messages per month, and a slightly more expensive plan that provided for unlimited texting.  I thought 500 text messages was more than anyone could use.  She said she could go through that on a busy day or two.

She was right.  She uses very few voice minutes, but can get 5 text messages within 60 seconds.  It's amazing to watch.  She considers phone calls (and emails) awkward, cumbersome and formal.  So much easier to whip out short text messages back and forth.

This generation also routinely uses their mobile phone to capture their everyday experiences -- they're snapping pictures and shooting short videos without a second thought -- and without specialized equipment.  I tend to think "digital camera", "movie camera", "music player", "sound recorder", "email" and so on.

They simply think "phone".

Their favorite web sites and applications are optimized for mobile devices.  If they don't look good on the cell phone, they don't use them as much.  It's that easy.

The "D'oh!" Moment

For me, it was simple.  In a few short years, the vast majority of IT users will be people using their cell phones to create and communicate.  It will be the new generation from the developed countries, and the entire populations of developing ones. 

Leaving people like me in the tiny minority, sadly.

The whole discussion of "cloud computing" seems pointless to them.  They've always lived in the cloud -- that's their perception of IT services -- it's something that gets delivered over the network -- always has, always will.  It's not something they have to get comfortable with, like the rest of us.

In fact, they seem to prefer a world where everything lives in a cloud, and nothing lives on the device. 

My daughter seems to be in a perpetual state of "phone lust" -- she always seems to want a new phone, either because better ones are out there, or hers got lost or broken, or maybe a bit of both combined in a sly way.

The last thing you want to do is recreate your "digital life" (contacts, texts, pictures, etc.) on your new device -- so much easier to always have it on the network, isn't it?

And I'm not sure how many of us in the technology business fully appreciate how important this shift might be.

Do Telecommunication Companies Get It?

I'm not entirely sure.  Some seem hell-bent on winning the "triple play" (or quad play) in the home -- cable, internet, voice and maybe wireless.  Now, I'm not complaining, I just went with Verizon's FiOS, and it's a great offering as compared to what I had before -- but, in one sense, it really didn't change the model.

I'm just now buying multiple networks from the same company, rather than buying them a-la-carte.  Their concept of "my information" seems to be limited to HD cable channels and pay-per-view.

I'm not sure the mobile operators are any better.  Sure, we can do email, and web browsing, and look at little postage-stamp video clips on our mobile devices, but I haven't seen too many of them that get the concept of "my information", e.g. the information that's important to me. 

They're willing to connect me to the cloud, but they're not willing to be "my cloud".

Do Software Vendors Get It?

Not many of them do.  I seem to see a lot of applications and web pages designed for full screens, full keyboards and full bandwidth.  They're usually miserable to use on a mobile device, at least as far as I can see. 

If you start by assuming your app, your web experience is going to run on a mobile device first, you think about the problem very, very differently, don't you?

Do IT Infrastructure Vendors Get It?

I'm not talking about the ones that cater to the mobile marketplace, I'm talking about the broad-based vendors like Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and EMC.

I'm generally familiar with most of what's in these company's portfolios, and -- other than a few examples here and there -- I can't say that I observe any of them really understanding the potential significance of mobile devices, and a mobile society.

And EMC is no exception.

Sure, we have some examples of EMC embracing mobile technology -- sort of.  Our RSA division has done some nice work with authentication on mobile devices, as an example.  And Documentum eRoom can look pretty spiffy on a high-end mobile browser.

But can we back up mobile devices today?  No.  Present our user interfaces optimized for mobile devices?  No.  When we think of information management, are we thinking about address books, contact lists and SMS text messages?  Or are we still thinking Word, PowerPoint and email?

Or full-screen web browser interfaces?

Making The Mobile A Desktop?

There's a certain line of thinking that says that all we have to do is transform our mobile devices into more desktop-like devices, and we'll all be good to go.  Bigger screens, more memory, more processing power, more storage, faster networks, maybe even Windows Mobile on our devices.  And bigger battery packs, to be sure.

These aren't cell phones, they're over-reduced PCs, in my opinion.  They entirely miss the point.

As an example, my current mobile weapon of choice is a slightly dated BlackBerry Pearl.  It works in just about every country and network.  The battery can last for many days.  It does the whole multimedia thing.  It fits in my shirt pocket without ripping it.  It's so small, I can lose it in one of my pockets.  It's a personal device, and not a clunky brick that requires a reinforced hip holster.

Because it's a BlackBerry, my concept of "personal information" is email.  Anything I care about, I put in an email, and send it to myself.  Email is my "cloud". 

Hardly optimal, but I bet a few of you out there do the same sort of thing.  Web access sucks, mostly because there are few web sites that are optimized for that sort of browser.  There's no automatic backup.  There's almost no ability to view, use or share my personal information.

Are smarter phones the answer?  Sure, that'll help, but I think we -- as an industry -- need to re-think mobile devices from the point of view of what they are, and not around what we'd like them to be.

And for all you iPhone fans out there, sure, nice device, but I tried the keyboard for 30 minutes and gave up.  I'm faster on  my mini-reduced BlackBerry phone keys.

Who Gets It, Then?

I think Google gets it, but they're not being entirely public about it.  I think Microsoft tried to get it by adapting Windows to mobile devices, but the result isn't exactly what I had in mind.  And, sadly, I don't have many other examples to share with you.

So, What Do You Think?

Are mobile devices the next "desktop"? 

Will success here require a fundamental re-thinking around applications and web presentations?  Or do we just need more powerful, larger, faster phones?

Will the concept of "personal information" shift to a cell-phone centric model, rather than a PC-centric one?

And will the cloud that we're all talking about just be a natural, logical extension of the emergence of our new mobile society?

Let me know what you think!

Comments

[Tony Pearson(IBM)]

Chuck,
I backup my cell phone today. I take the SIM chip out of my phone, stick it into my "SIM backup device" press the backup button, and then put the SIM back into my phone. The device can handle two individual SIM's if you have a spouse or roommate. It is also great for transferring information from one SIM chip of one provider to another SIM chip of a different provider. This SIM backup device was a give-away at one of our events, so no idea if you can go out a buy one.

[Steve D]

Chuck: Welcome to the Fog Brotherhood. The cloud concept is true to meteorologists, but for those of us living on the surface - under the cumulonimbus at ~8000 meters - I think of it more like a digital fog. I think many of us in the Brotherhood (not exclusive of the Sisterhood, of course) have had the D'oh moment in the past few years or so - mine occurred last April.

Maybe a great place to start would be offering XSL for mobile devices as part of a EMC D6 PageBuilder or WebPublisher Service Pack!

Hope to meet you at EMC World! I'll be the one with the altimeter on my baseball cap.