Abstraction

Article in PC world talks about HTML 5 in the context of the Google announcements today (http://tinyurl.com/mk8krj)

HTML5 is a standard that is still being developed and is likely to remain so for several years. Its focus on running applications within the browser is an important driver of interest in cloud computing, where applications live somewhere off on the Internet and are delivered by the browser.

The focus of future browsers will shift from “going places” to “doing things.” This will be a boon to free operating systems, which will increasingly be able to hide themselves under the browser user interface. While Windows and Mac OSX won’t go away overnight, the pressure on them will be to innovate beyond the browser, perhaps through a common set of extensions for HTML5 applications to use.

The key takeaway is that the operating system is in the cloud, in addition to office applications and everything else. Mobile operators are the most important — and to date largely unsung — players here; it is they that have the most to gain (or lose, if they succeed at screwing it up).

You’ve heard it before: remember Sun’s campaign that the “Network is the Computer. ” Back in 1995 Larry Ellison was predicting that Network Computers would replace Personal Computers as the computing equipment of choice. And Netscape said for years that the browser was the “next OS.”

The difference now is that a viable broadband mobile infrastructure is in place. Network technologies have matured, not from a technological standpoint (they’ve been mature from some time), but from a social standpoint. The network is now, finally, ready to realize it’s place as the computer because people’s lives are integrated with it more deeply than even Larry could dream more than a decade ago.

I’ve read a number of reports speculating about mobile data growth lately and it strikes me that they typically omit what I believe is the most significant evolution affecting mobile data. iPhones and similar are great and have certainly accelerated the market, but they are nothing compared to the impact (and opportunity for network policy vendors) represented by netbooks with embedded cellular access.

Consider: Right now, AT&T is selling a range of laptops in Northern California at Radio Shack for $49.95 (that’s not a typo — 50 bucks; see http://tinyurl.com/oagx33) with a 2 year contract for flat rate data with a monthly cap. Netbooks are now the most popular computer type on the market (Intel expects sales to double in 2009 http://tinyurl.com/djxdrd).

Too, there’s the recent announcements of businesses standardizing on cloud office applications like Google Apps. Imagine the savings a large enterprise can enjoy by standardizing on netbooks. Laptops so cheap they are almost disposable. All data saved safely in the cloud.

Suddenly you have lots of torrent sessions and Skype calls routinely supported through the mobile network. Huge increases in youtube traffic. Hulu. Even parental control becomes much more meaningful as parents worry about inappropriate content accessed via the laptop much more than a phone.

Suddenly, despite usage caps, the GGSN is supporting data volume like no one could ever dream, with smartphone traffic a minority. Some reports say this is a long range play. We’ll see. I think it’s going to explode as we watch. And vendors that tie licensing terms to usage/seats/transactions or similar, will watch revenue explode with it…

Conveniently located down the street from my office is the Computer History Museum, which has a huge exhibit devoted to the evolution of computers. Just as you enter this room, on the wall to the right, is an abacus display. Continue walking and the exhibit provides a mind boggling chronology of computing, including ENIAC machines, 10Meg hard drives as big as my car, Cray supercomputers, and finally the Apple ][, TRS-80s, Atari 800s, and the PC.

By the way, if (like me) you see “TRS-80″ and immediately think “trash 80,” you’re showing your age.

My favorite part of the exhibit, by far, is the display of the more recent (say, ‘85-’95) computing devices, the ones that I used as a kid. It’s fun to look at at an 1200 baud modem and remember dialing up BBSs.

It’s fun, too, to think of how things have changed. In my mind, computing technology evolves in a kind of punctuated equilibrium (with apologies to Stephen Jay Gould). I’m not referring to Moore’s Law as an evolutionary concept, I mean dramatic, changes-everything evolution.

In my lifetime, there have been two of these. The first was the emergence of the PC as a common household tool. The second, of course, was the introduction of the Internet and the browser.

We are at the cusp of a third revolution, one even more significant than the others. It’s not really about the hyped concepts du jour: Web2.0, or IMS, or platforms (although all three of these are made possible by the emerging technologies). This revolution is more fundamental than that: it’s about the distribution of media, all media, via the network. I think the implications for this are truly mind blowing.

Traditional channels for media delivery exist because there was no alternative: CDs, DVDs, shrink-wrapped software, all exist because it was the most effective way to get media from the producer to the consumer. All of these will largely be gone within a decade: CompUSA will no longer sell software, Blockbuster will no longer have brick and mortar stores, music and film distributors will finally give up physically recorded media completely, television will be completely IP based.

The music and movie side to this phenomenon is well known, but truly amazing new businesses are announced daily. Ooma, for example, or Pano Logic, or Zonbu.

To date, all of the attention related to this third wave (if you will) has been focused on the services (the web2.0 and etc.) I mentioned briefly above. And yes, those companies I linked above are cool and amazing. But they aren’t the real winners.

But the real money, by and large, is gonna be made elsewhere: by the folks that make the networks and the network management, billing, and security systems. These are the systems that make it all possible; the technology that’s invisible and expected to perform faultlessly, like the telephone system. Pick up the receiver, and you get a dial tone every time.