But that’s not my major point today.  One of the things that came up again on this trip is the notion that for the first time in my career Microsoft is just plain not in the game.  Irrelevant.  No show.

Now, I’ve been at this game awhile.  I wrote my first code in 9th grade in 1979 (on a TRS-80 Model 1) well before Microsoft mattered.  But my first real development came during the period when Microsoft was trying to get Windows to be real.  In those days Digital Research had a great DOS called DRDOS that was the cats meow.  And in my opinion, Microsoft did everything in their power to make sure DRDOS failed.  Fast forward through all the history with Microsoft, the anti-trust cases, the clear outright dominance of the market, the flailing attempt of my beloved Linux to get some kind of toe-hold, the Microsoft funded SCO debacle… for most of my professional life Microsoft has been the bruiser, the 600 pound gorilla, the Heavyweight Champion of the World.

Not any more.  When was the last time you heard something about Microsoft that mattered?  Thought so.

The reality is that in the consumer space it’s now Apple and Microsoft.  The shift to mobile-oriented computing is well documented (I won’t elaborate here).  For most people the computer they use most is their mobile phone.  The innovation and the new markets are in mobile.  The interaction with the cloud will be primarily mobile.  In short, the MARKET that MATTERS will be mobile.  And Microsoft has a pathetic attempt with Windows Mobile 7.  It’s late, it’s not as good as what shipped by Apple or Google/Android last year, and it has no compelling EXTRA VALUE.  I’m not the only one who says this – just read here (disaster) , here (doomed), and here (unimpressive) (your own search will return hundreds more like this).   On the desktop market, which still has a place, the only market I see Microsoft in is the old Enterprise.  And if the Oracle momentum is not stopped, that will matter less and less to Redmond too.  That’s a whole different post though.

I want to point out what I mean by EXTRA VALUE.  Android provides compelling value by being free to the handset vendors allowing for a cheaper phone, and it supports the Google ecosystem giving free access to email and navigation.  The only think my wife really misses from her Android phone (I bought her an iPhone) is the navigation in Google Maps.   Microsoft has NOTHING to compare.  Apple has the cool factor, of course, but they also have the Apple ecosystem around iTunes.  Serious extra value is there from an integrated suite of tools that just work.  Microsoft has NOTHING to compare. They simply don’t.  Their software is crap, they have no extra value, and they don’t offer a price advantage.  They still exist on the echoes of their former monopoly power.

As Om Malik points out the shift in mobile is Apple and Android taking market from RIM and Nokia.  Microsoft is not even mentioned.  I could write much the same about RIM and Nokia – they suffer the same problems that Microsoft does.

The bottom line is that we are entering a new era, and it’s going to be one where Apple, Google, Oracle, and Amazon are the new gorillas.  I’ll save it for later why I think Amazon will be in that list, but the most important thing on my mind today is that for the first time ever in my career, Microsoft is simply not in the game.  And I don’t think they ever will be either – they are too big, too bloated, and as described in the The Innovator’s Dilemma they are getting eaten from below.  And as I reflect on the years of their bullying, I can’t say it bothers me all that much.  Long live the new era.  I think it’s rules will be different, but no less cut-throat!

Think about it.  You get a few hundred dollars off the cost of the phone but then are LOCKED to that plan for two years.  The coming price and feature war between Sprint’s new 4G network, Verizon’s rollout of 3G, the shift of AT&T to a new world that is more than the iPhone playground… we’re going to want to take advantage of those dropping prices.  T-Mobile is already offering month-to-month.  $60 gets you a month of unlimited SMS and internet and 500 minutes of call time.  Use Skype and it’s unlimited talk time.  The phone network is going all IP and the era of the voice network is coming to an end.  Finally.   I hoped to help bring this about a decade ago when I was with Quicknet building the MicroTelco system.  It’s nice to see that the market has brought this around finally.

What’s really enabling this is the power of the smart phone hardware *and* the effect of Android.  I’ve been down on Android for it’s tendency to fragment the market and I’ve whined philosophically about how nice it would be if Nokia’s Maemo could be a unifying force.  But the power of Android is evident all around me.  It’s basically a radical sea change in the nature of phone software development.  The walled gardens are down – the thorned buses surrounding the pristine revenue gardens of the carriers are burned to the ground and the gates are thrown open to innovation and access.  As much as this might open the phones to possible malware, it also open the ecosystem to radical new possibilities.  Android is already running on tablets and lots of other mobile devices – and it will be on more and more.  Why?  Because it’s open.  Because there is no walled garden.  Because it’s basically a solid linux core with a reasonable set of API functionality on top.  It’s not just about the phones, it’s about the mobile device ecosystem, and the fact that the leash that was the carriers is now off forever.

Smartphone, PDA, handheld computer, whatever…  call it what you wish.  But the power of a gigahertz processor with 3D video coprocessing, decent memory, some storage, and connectivity is going to enable a whole new way normal people use computers.  By ‘normal’ I mean non-techie geeks – regular folks.  Making a voice call is just one of the things you can do with these devices… and a very minor thing at that.

The future, my friends, is unlocked.  In more ways than one.  And I could not be more excited about it.

Tell me what you think about our unlocked future!  Leave a comment.  Should be fun.

But businesses mature and adapt and PRN is no different.  The only constant is change, rolling stones gather no moss, and those who stand still die… and all that.  So my role changes.  My incredibly capable team managers are now going to step up and take on the long-term challenge of taking the core PRN video platform to the next level.  And I get to move on to what I love to do, what I think I’m really good at:  sniffing out the next thing, the next set of technologies, the next advances, the next partners with solid technology that we can leverage to build value for our customers and stock holders.  It’s time to build something new – using parts of the old if it makes sense, or inventing it from whole cloth if not.  It’s my comfort zone.  I’m incredibly energized by the prospects.

I’ll be writing about some of the ideas and technologies here.  Stay tuned.  You never know what I’ll get interested in.  Some of the things on my horizon:  3D technology, wireless, mobile devices, noSQL.  It should be fun!

First of all, why is there no accelorometer in the device?  Having a device that can display either landscape (for web and email) or portrait (for calls) *should* have a means to automatically detect what orientation the user is holding it in.  FAIL. [NOTE:  folks have since told me that I am wrong, that there are accelerometers in the hardware - that's great!]

Second of all, why the crazy decision to use a Type B micro USB plug – and to make it client only?  Micro USB is still USB, but geesh, 99% of all other devices are mini-USB.  Most folks I know have a collection of mini-USB cables and chargers already because we have a collection of devices that use them.  There’s room on the phone hardware to use the mini-USB, but no… Nokia went and used the darn micro-USB.  And what’s with the choice to make the device client only?   Here’s a hand-held computer and you cannot plug a thumb drive into it?  What?????? FAIL.

Third, since it’s a phone and the assumption is that the users would definitely use 3G when not in WiFi range they *removed* the N800/810 capability to use Bluetooth tethering to access the network via another phone.  Why take it out?  I was actually hoping to use the N900 as a tethered device to avoid having to pay *another* data plan.  I carry a Blackberry for work and have a data plan on that… to get 3G coverage on the N900 I now have to buy anther data plan since Nokia decided to remove perfectly functional software that works wonderfully on the N800/810 devices.  FAIL.

All that said, the device is well built, has a beautiful screen (even if they did shrink it – I like the bigger N810 screen).  It’s crazy fast and very responsive.  The camera is excellent.  As a platform I think some really good software can be developed for it.  But Nokia better get with the program and think about what a mobile hand-held computer is all about.  They should have had a several year head start.  But I think they have wasted it.  I’m terribly disappointed.

I’ll be developing some software for the N900 over the next months and I’ll comment in this blog about my findings.  Perhaps I’ll change my mind and fall in love with the device as I start to use it more.  What about you all though?  Are you loving the N900?  Why or why not?

I’ve tweeted a lot about Apple’s iPhone empire being evil (of a sort).  It’s a closed, controlled ecosystem.   You can buy your phone from only one vendor.  It will run on only one carrier (AT&T).   You can get applications from only one place (Apple App Store).  If you want to develop for the iPhone you have to use one set of tools (from Apple).    If you want to share your software you have to do it through the App Store (even if it’s free).  If Apple thinks your application is inappropriate for any reason, they can block it.  Some reasons might be that they think it’s illegal, or perhaps it has profane words in it.  Or maybe it has functionality that Apple wants to reserve for itself or it’s partners (think Google Voice).     Apple can even revoke your right to be in the App Store after they have accepted you… so you might have a pile of loyal users of your software out in the world and suddenly find yourself with no way to get upgrades to them.  All the power is in Apple’s hands, and they seem to be wielding it for their own gain.  That’s prompted folks – me included – to call them evil.

I believe in a free market and a free ecosystem.   I believe – and vote with my dollars – for products that are more open than Apple.  I want the right to code for my computing devices and to install software on them if I want to.  I want to be able to write software and either give it away or sell it for others who have a similar device.  I don’t want to allow the device maker to have the power to control when, if, and for how long my software – or anyone’s software – can be distributed for the device.   I want multiple ways to get software distributed.  I want to install software from the Open Source Community.  I want to buy software too – from a variety of online stores, direct from the maker, or through media I purchase in a box in a store.  But Apple does not allow that.   It’s worse, actually, since this is an artificial limitation that Apple built into the iPhone.  There’s no technical reason for it – just that Apple wants to ‘control’ all the look and feel of the applications and of course to take their hefty slice (30% minimum) on all the transactions.  Sounds a lot like a thug with a gun at the bridge toll plaza.  “You want to cross, you pay my toll” kind of thing.

I should say that I don’t like the iPhone anyway.  It’s got wiz-bang human user software that took the game up a level for phones.  They have a great browser – if you want to web surf mobile it’s a nice platform.  They are a terrible phone – terrible radio.   I’ve been in remote areas (near Truckee, actually) and my Blackberry 9000 had two bars and a friends iPhone had NOTHING.    I hear that all the time.  I also don’t want a phone that can only run one application at a time – oh, unless you have the secret Apple hooks to get some limited call back functions.  You know, real multitasking systems on phones have been standard for a decade.   And just try to type on one if you have fingers like mine.  Sorry, mobile email is still my killer application and is the only thing that really makes my phone’s data plan ripoff costs something I can morally agree to.

So, on to Android.  Russell Beattie wrote in his blog that Android is splintering.  He makes a good point.  There will be so many flavors of the Android phone with such different capabilities that creating an application for all of ‘Android’ is probably impossible.   I’ve written before though that I’m not holding my breath about android (pun intended).  It has all the marks of a system written by too many smart Engineers without enough serious market focus behind it.  Toss in the fact (carrier meddling?) that they won’t even expose real telephony interfaces (read my blog about that) and it’s not the iPhone killer some seem to think it is.

What’s occurred to me is that the reason iPhone has so much power is the fact that their evil control over the ecosystem is what will give them even more power to destroy Android.  Russell’s blog made a great point:  consumers just want the software to work.  If they buy one Android phone and install Android software on it, they will be right to expect it to work.  But it probably won’t since the software author may have never tested on their model phone.    iPhone developers have a drastically smaller QA matrix.  Their very evil ways essentially give them an incredible advantage.

All this got me seriously thinking about the new Nokia N900.  Amazing computer power in a phone with a touch screen *and* a nice keyboard.  I’ve used the Nokia 800 and 810 quite a bit and they were *almost* there for me.  They needed more polish, but what they really needed was a phone and a 3G data plan.  When my N900 comes I can tell you if it’s the one or not.  But in the meantime I wonder if Maemo – the Linux based software stack that runs on these Nokia units – is the phone OS that can challenge the iPhone.  Controlled hardware platform produced by a trusted brand.  Serious market penetration to start with.  Solid hardware if their history indicates anything.  Seriously open development environment with a growing community of developers – with many computer languages, not just the java-centric thing that Android is.   An App store in the works but software available from multiple channels.  Can Nokia use Maemo to lever into the game the way Android might not be able to?  Maybe.   Seriously maybe.

I tweeted about this tonight.  Peter Cranstone tweeted me that he thinks it will be Windows Mobile 7.  I doubt that, unless it’s a total rewrite.  My Windows Mobile phone (a Motorola Q) was a scary indicator of how far back Microsoft was in basic phone thinking:  even though I had a full keyboard the only speed dial keys available wre the numeric 0-9 keys.  What?  And the UI was pathetic – all desktop Windoze oriented with no understanding of a mobile interaction model.  If MS can wake up they might be able to fix that (they have enough money to hire the best and let them rip) but can they really do it?  Maybe – they are grokking open source a bit these days (I cannot believe I am admitting that though) – they even released some gode under the GPL.  So, it might be colder in Hades soon, who knows.

What do you think?  Leave a comment.  I’m interested in what you all think about where mobile is going.