Laptops: an end of an era

Laptops started out as lightweight portable PCs, but have succumbed to stiff competition from the Smartphone, Tablet and Phone-Tablet (dubbed Phablet) alternatives.

The factors that have slowly taken the laptops close to their extinction are:

1. Weight (although portable, lugging them over long distances is not comfortable.)
2. Fragility (except for the rugged versions, most laptops cannot stand shocks)
3. Upgrades (very minimal)
4. Battery Backup (extremely low if compute power required is high defeating portability)
5. Lifetime (3 years at best, but the next generation replacement is seldom as far ahead as the smartphone class.)
6. Chargers (These are not standardized and vary heavily across brands and models.)
7. Serviceability (Time consuming and subject to spare part availability)
8. Thermal performance (Cooling has always been a challenge, with few laptops cutting that edge for those who can afford them.)
9. Display (Graphics acceleration for several reasons has always been minimal, rendering them less useful for high-end applications like rendering.)
10. Wireless Communication (Too few are provided with 3G making them less useful in remote environments)
11. Recycling (the mechanical design is usually less susceptible to recycling, as is the display, input interfaces and storage - with the core motherboard also getting outdated far too quickly. This coupled with the short lifetime is making them less recycle-friendly.)
12. Software (Operating Systems constantly requiring upgrades make the "Personal" computing part much costlier and less affordable across most available brands. This is also true of most application software used.)

BSNL Low Cost Tablet

BSNL, working with "Pantel Technologies" in Noida has come up with three low-cost tablet alternatives providing tethered data plans.

The lowest cost is a 7-inch tablet priced at Rs 3,250 whose most tardy feature is a Resistive Touchscreen. All models have relatively lower RAM than the glitterati tablets that vie with the likes of iPad.

These are nowhere close and are strictly meant to be affordable. They are not meant to be positioned against the Samsung Galaxy Tab or Motorola Xoom or Acer Iconia. The iPad is way out of league in comparison.

For those who would be interested in getting heavier tablets for a more affordable budget, you could take a look at the specifications. All the Tablets are named 'Penta T-PAD' and the interesting part is the number of ports they come with.

Bitching, Gossip and Politicking

Whilst working in India, I notice that in several semi-urban Companies/Organizations, a large percentage of time is spent in gossip, politicking and bitching (blaming a third person who is not present) in a conversation.

This habit of gossip and politicking stems from the fact that we are a native populace who are over a millennium old at the very least - even the migrants among us. We have enjoyed large reserves of food, and long periods of time to kill - and during this time, as part of a social structuring exercise much time has been spent in gossip and politicking as means of reworking social structure. Early evidence of such politicking is evident in historic annals of the Nanda Dynasty (which destroyed the Gana Sanghs of the Gangetic Plain and gained strong control) and had many achievements but eventually fell to a more actionable successor - the Mauryas led by a strategic expert 'Kautilya'.

Today, Companies & Organizations where people get too comfortable because they are blindly trusted by their superiors or management end up having a lot of politicking and gossip. If a leader does not see this and leaves it unattended, providing time and opportunity for politicking to continue, this negative culture erodes the entire organization and effectually decreases or neutralizes productivity. Slowly, the Company (or Organization) marches towards certain extinction until a point where even a Turnaround Leader (like a Lee Iaccoca) can no longer make amends. This culture usually stems from people who earn strong trust, but continue to feel insecure despite that deep trust. The worst type of leader in an organization is the 'yes-man' who never tells facts and contradicts management/investor/stakeholder's requests. They always say 'yes' when it is the top-boss/investor asking for some result and then try, but eventually fail when it is physically impossible. Slowly the rot of politicking erodes the organization like the termites of Saruman (frm: LOTR) and leaves everyone's morale in a low, also spreading mass stress usually combined with indifference and depression.

If you are inside a company where your boss pretends that factual reality is wrong and relies on perspectives of some individual on whom she has invested all her trust, it is a sign that you ought to leave. This is the true manifestation of 'Maya' (as Indian Philosophy calls gnosticism.) There is little to be done after the decision-maker is swayed by the virtuosity created by her trustworthy lieutenant. The one thing you can do is to leave the organization without scruple, for the repairing the damage is no longer in your hand. Unless you can bring your boss back to reality and see beyond the veil created by the trustworthy lieutenant who is creating the virtual realm and simultaneously harming the organization, there is not much to do; except if you believe in revolt. Switch to an company or organization where people spend much less time blaming, in gossip, in politics and more time producing and attending to their customers.

If you are the one feeling insecure and creating the virtual world, stop and think. Eventually your hunger for control (which is the same as the hunger for power) and your assumptions (which were never based on fact) are about to bring the ship down. If you do not have true affection and concern for society and are feigning it, then you are about to see truth reflect on you - for it always triumphs, and "truth's triumph" doesn't mean that the resultant is sweet. The bitterness might leave an organization and its people in shambles. Provoking people and making them talk about a third person to feed your own egotist self is the best way to tear down morale and trust below you. Finally no one will respect you nor trust you - for this nasha (or madness) will be your own undoing of yourself - for you will find that true happiness will elude you and leave you in perpetual pain, (even if you were a sadomasochist.) 

You need help first, you need to understand that nature does not take kindly to those who eat into organizations into which they are most trusted by their bosses. Nature is strong and when it reflects on you - no human can save you, for you will be destroyed, not by people. The longer you continue, the stronger will be nature's backlash. The organization will turn unprofitable, revenue will be difficult, customers will be slim, employees will have no morale, no attachment - they will create smaller cycles of the same evil you do to others. 

Eventually all will fall, with no one to protect you, save Nature itself and the Omnipotent Creator. Save yourself and prevent it. Remember that this world changes almost instantly and only all the good you have done or have tried to do will be with you when you find dire straits - you can get back and undo the damage you have knowingly or unknowingly unleashed. Blame someone else when you have all the authority, time shall wear you down - for you shall continually find hell on earth and be accustomed to repeat your vices. Life is short to be wasted feeling hell.

When you look for a new job, check the employees about 'blame-games', 'finger-pointing', 'gossips', how they spend free time, actual profit/loss statements, achievements per unit time in the recent past and then invest your time in that company. 

Do not, in desperation join an environment that robs you of your sense of fulfillment and happiness because of a politicking marauder and a hyper-trusting top-boss. Real organizations will not work in binary/extremes. They will create balance and an environment for people to shine, not whine. Find this for it exists in the subcontinent, do not spend your career in a pained place where everyone is suffering and passing only the suffering on to employees and customers alike. Stay alert and try not to hurt anyone no matter what.

The 'Yes-man' will not exist in an organization where the Top-Boss listens and senses the environment with empathy and logic, thereby removing them and placing realistic achievers who achieve, yet never say 'yes' to every request. This is the best environment, where you will find mentors, not bitching/gossip/politicking - these environments exist for India is soaked in deep wisdom of its past. Finding them is also easy, it merely requires diligence.

Find them and escape those vices that can destroy you. Life is what we experience through time, and it is ill-news to waste it feeling pain. Life is to be relished, enjoyed every moment. Life is not a wave of joy and sorrow, it is ultimately what we feel and paradise is on earth, it is our response to the environment; and it is our choice to choose or create this environment where we find paradise and no pain. Mukthi and Nirvana is achieved on earth, for our great past has taught us much. Mere dressing-up and make-up will never have true results. Mere talking will never help for your identity is derived from what you do; "you are what you do."

Tablet Renaissance - 11 Items to Check

Tablet computing is reaching a vortex with Consumer Electronics vendors, pushing them into the market more enthusiastically than ever. The concept of the Tablet was tried more than once earlier (termed Tablet/PC), deriving designs from the Laptop/PC. Those attempts had mixed results, but no roaring successes. The HP Tablet/PC image on the right is sweet memory of what looked like an oversized Compaq/HP/iPaq. With new Mobile Microprocessors, the advent of platforms like Android, the game has undoubtedly changed. The Laptop/PC itself has evolved into the more portable and light-weight Netbook. We would quickly associate the term "tablet" to Apple's much hyped iPad.

Yet, will people take to using tablets? Practical usability of Tablets would depend on

1. Size, form factor of the Tablet
   
2. Interface usability - display readability, touch screens, keypads, voice recognition
3. Weight of the Tablet (People hate lugging heavy slates.)
4. Battery Life (surviving longer without a recharge.)
   
5. Connectivity options (3G, WiFi, WiMax, USB, ethernet ...)
6. Memory Storage (Internal Storage, Expansion Options, Maximum Limits)
   
7. Application availability (Application stores, reasonable variety of options.)
   
8. Utility and Productivity value (Business and Entertainment use.)
   
9. Freedom to customize, theme and personalize
10. Availability of Accessories (Docks, Sleeves)
11. After Sales Support and Services!
    

As the market is highly nascent, 'size' is something that has not crystallised yet. Devices with display sizes varying from 5" to 11", with/without keypads or touchpads are available. The popularity of the Amazon Kindle (as an eBook reader) seemed to have triggered a Domino effect in creation and commercialisation of Tablets. Comparisons and theories on whether Apple iPad started the Tablet craze or the eBook readers did are abundant.

I find the form factor of tablets, a little heavier to carry around; while my laptop is still remains indispensable for my work. Screen size definitely improves readability, and the iPad probably got it just right in terms of readability.

I do find the tablet useful for

1. Quick information lookup and search
2. Updating a microblog
3. Checking email
4. Reading documents, eBooks
5. Getting Navigation Assistance
6. Testing out mobile applications
7. An alternative when I cannot carry my Laptop

I still find a few issues that would have to be sorted out, as the devices become more commonly used:

• Charger compatibility and standardisation
• Video output for quick use as a presentation tool
• Easy solutions to carry a Tablet
• Information security and privacy concerns
• Seamless and dynamic network connectivity/migration
• Pricing of Tablets, upgrades and accessories is yet to settle down
• Dependence on the "Cloud Infrastructure" is heavy, but is Cloud infrastructure failsafe?

Solutions do exist for the items I have listed, but they still remain open in search of better solutions. The Tablets overlap an application space taken up by smartphones, and once served by the PDA. Their advent in the markets is more an evolution of the PDA (into the Smartphone, and now the Tablet.) Players who were successful earlier, like "Palm" have found it difficult to keep up with the momentum of the smartphone era. Players who have succeeded in the Smartphone era like "Research In Motion" (RIM) are worried about their survival in the upcoming Tablet era. New entrants come in with lots of innovations. The "Notion Ink", for example, (image, left) on one variant claims 15 hours of battery life. Will such claims hold when the devices are put to real use?

Linux Unleashed (2011)

Over a decade ago, the landscape of open source was predominantly GNU/Linux with Mozilla and the Apache foundation. Teamed up with MySQL, the server scape was slowly assimilated. The Desktop was young with Slackware, Debian, Redhat, Mandrake making early in-roads. Few saw Linux as a solution for the desktop where usability translated to simplicity. Hackers (programmers), sysadmins adopted GNU/Linux in whatever form it was available. At the same time, IBM was demonstrating Linux on its mainframes and packing it onto a wristwatch. They had proven that it was practically scalable. The impact at that time was subtle, but a revolution had begun.

In the early days of GNU/Linux, there were frequent comparisons of Linux with Microsoft's Windows and Mac OS (many serving as flame-bait in mailing lists and forums.) Computing devices were not yet commodity and the OS/System Software space was presumed to be an oligopoly. The "OS" was seen as a product, an end in itself, rather than the means to an application (which is easier from today's perspective.) To be fair today, Linux does not have a single perspective (or personality) to project it as a 'de facto' desktop OS alternative. Ubuntu, Knoppix, Linux Mint, Arch, CentOS, Fedora, OpenSuSE and the list goes on.

I remember a discussion in 2001 with my then CEO (Codito), Harshad Pathak. We were a group of hackers trying to define data abstraction, data hiding and data encapsulation. He came up with lines of wisdom, "I don't care what Operating System my Phone is running as long as I can make calls and use it for texting. Embedded Linux, Windows CE - it really doesn't matter." As techies, to us, the OS was sacred, and that transformed the discussion into an argument. An Operating System must facilitate the user to accomplish something, which could be done only through an application or service or a mix of both.



Today, we are precisely in the scenario where the GNU/Linux ecosystem has facilitated end-user productivity through applications, platforms and cohesive technology. Google uses data centres powered by the GNU/Linux ecosystem. Android derives from a Linux kernel. Chrome-OS derives from a Linux kernel. Facebook runs scalable servers powered by GNU/Linux. Desktop options powered by GNU/Linux are innumerable as this infographic reveals. Alternate OS platforms including Sun (now Oracle)'s OpenSolaris, OpenStorage, BSD's contributions as FreeBSD (forked as Darwin became a part of Mac OS), OpenBSD and NetBSD offer a much larger palette to choose from.

Android users are clearly using a phone, empowered with applications and web services from google. The Internet has many businesses providing services in a SaaS model, a good number of them powered by the ongoing Open Source revolution. Business models have undergone radical changes. Semiconductor companies (Intel, AMD, ARM, TI, FreeScale - to name a few) have gone out of the way to ensure System Software (compiler, OS) level support for new Silicon solutions through the Open Source Community. As this has gradually happened, there is a perceived reduction in solution costs that have been passed on to the end user. The spectrum of smart-phones and tablets at CES 2011 was more than proof of how semiconductor majors worked on reducing time-to-market and system-software costs.

Businesses are increasingly adapting and learning to use community source (rather than roll their own code for everything,) wherever it gives them a significant advantage. The businesses having understood the potential, have also begun to reciprocate to the community. It's happening right now, almost oblivious to the glitz and glamour of a Consumer gadget show or a Technology forum.
Proprietary stand-alone platforms are quickly revising and re-inventing. To name a few, Microsoft Live, Microsoft Azure have been Microsoft's answer to the changing technology scape. Rumour mills suggest Apple Sabertooth could be Apple's answer to the change.

Ultimately, what began as the GNU revolution, and then the GNU/Linux revolution, to a full-fledged ecosystem expanding with options as new players joined has changed Information Technology irreversibly. 'The Cloud' is often compared with earlier ideas proposing 'Network Computers', later 'Network Computing.' Yet, the cloud solutions available rely on the evolved Open Source ecosystem. Community Source / Open Source has finally emerged as part of the change and catalyst to the change. The entire system has evolved without serving goals or targets of its own original projects by allowing itself and therefore impact, goal and user-base to change. The business model of the Open Internet Venture is here to stay. Corporate Entities and Governments are also embracing Open Source (WSJ).

Startups, Open Source and Revenue - Myth vs Truth

Many believe that if you release your software product with the source open, any customer can procure it, better it and sell it thereby eliminating you in the market outright. This is one of the frequent arguments against opening source code and therefore to "Open Source" that many businesses quote.

I believe they will need to cite a case here. Buy Product Once, Get Source and Kill; sounds too easy to be true.

Actually I have source code of some game engines released by id software, and I know gaming companies who compete who have this, yet, I don't see anyone killing "id". I also have pieces of OpenSolaris and OpenStorage from SUN. IBM shouldn't have even made that $7b bid after expressing interest in OpenStorage among other areas from Sun.

I could even do this with "proprietary software" where source is offered whenever I pay (a much smaller sum than net worth of a company.) There are tons of companies who are willing to part with source for higher costs.

Sun wouldn't have "bought out" Virtual Box and MySQL if they could just use the source instead. Buying Out is one of the available "exit strategies" for a cash-strapped startup.

Clearly someone has to prove that Redhat's profits have dropped because Canonical and almost everyone else who has taken on pieces of code has cut into a static pie of consumer market. The truth is software markets are closely linked to a lot of other markets including service markets. These markets grow or shrink dynamically. The whole pie however depends on user base which has been constantly expanding.

For OpenOffice, I think resurrection of Lotus with the OpenOffice source is proof enough that an entirely different company used this. Transgaming's Wine is open-source except for a portion of the DirectX (not all of it) libraries. You could potentially run your own company and beat them, or a "Giant" can have them without buying source. Transgaming emulates Windows libraries on Unixes (starting with Linux and now on Mac OS X.) Does an Apple certified vendor or Apple actually sell proprietary Microsoft Windows Games support? (Not to my knowledge.)

Revenues: Eric Raymond probably has a few tips. Product Engineering outfits do widget frosting, the model that's simple to understand. Some "violate" Open Source citing that they cannot make profits; on similar arguments raised here. Savings as revenue is an oft cited case. Today it is far more relevant. If your cost to create something is potentially reduced you can reduce the price a customer has to pay while you still make a profit.

My former employer did buy software for incorporating into products. My former employer is a profitable product company. However, because we could not modify one small piece of the bought-in black box (with no possibilities to acquire source at any cost) we just had a 25% increase in development life-cycle. That was "Loss." We decided never again to consume anything from "closed source" companies as it potentially created black boxes of uncertainty within our own products.

Open Source is not Free(dom) Software always nor is it Free (Beer.)

Source code (which is open,) is a more primitive formal expression of the binary format of the product which is re-usable and easier to modify than the binary format of the product.

The binary format (executable files) of many products can also be reverse engineered. (Remember Borland!? They did not advocate Open Source but where caught up with Sidekick.) This is also easy for a heavy-weight as opposed to a smaller group.

Myth: "Open Source makes a startup vulnerable to acquisition."
Truth: "Low on Cash makes anything vulnerable to acquisition."

Myth: "Open Source companies suffer a handicap while trying to make revenue."
Truth: "Companies unprepared to serve their customers suffer a handicap while trying to make revenue."

Time, the press stopped incorrect interpretation of Open Source as non Revenue Generating.

Watch this video (at youtube) for Guy Kawasaki's take on "Revenue from Open Source" and "Open Source enabling Startups."