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September 05, 2002
Wireless Mobile Productivity Devices
Ray Ozzie opines on wireless mobile productivity devices (i.e. notebook computers) and concludes that "In terms of the value that we can get from our own personal computers and the Internet, however, we're still at the dawn of a new era. An era in which software matters, and architecture matters." He says:
The browser has served us well. It has provided a means by which we can have universal access to applications, transactions, and published information. But in the meantime, the PC has become a powerhouse: cpu, gpu, storage, price. The Great Conversion to notebook computers is well under way, and it's now clear that the most wildly successful wireless mobile productivity device won't be the 3G phone, or even the BlackBerry, but the ubiquitous and inexpensive WiFi notebook. In a shape and size to suit every need.
I use a notebook computer exclusively and have for years. I got tired of never having the right files with me and so now they're all in one place and I carry that place with me. I also have a WiFi card and one of the new Sprint CDMA cards for wide area wireless. I find its easier to get work and other things done if I've got the same environment no matter where I go.
The question that I ask as a CIO is how widely should notebook computers be deployed in the organization. One school of thought is to let Ozzie and others develop applications that drive demand and let business managers make the decision of who should have a laptop and who doesn't ned one. That presumes that the business managers have the vision to see the (often soft) value that a notebook might bring.
The other school of thought is push them out to the organization widely and see what happens. As an example, about a year ago, I needed to replace the computers for my staff and I got a notebook for everyone. My feeling is that they don't have to take it home and work very often for me to recoup a few hundred dollars difference in cost.
At an enterprise level, I prefer a third way. As CIO, I have a duty to support business managers in reaching business goals, but I also often have to wear the visionary hat, which sometimes means finding ways to deploy technology that may not have a proven ROI yet. There is a kind of person (they exist in every organization) that if you give them a new tool with unexplored capabilities, they will figure out some pretty neat ways to use the tools. I think we need to find ways to "award" notebook computers with wireless networking capabilities to these people and see what develops. This is kind of the approach I took with blogging. Fortunately, giving away blogs is less expensive than giving away notebook computers.
01:26 PM | Recommend This | Print This
My Hate/Love Relationship with Internet Explorer: An Open Source Story
Infoworld had an article this week on IE not locking down correctly. What happens is that IE will display the lock symbol, when a proper SSL connection has not truly been established. More details can be found in the original report by Mike Benham. This is on top of the fact that since I started using XP, I get asked about a jillion times a day if I want to install the Java runtime environment (which XP doesn't support) Yes, I know you can tell it not to ask you anymore, but I let it keep telling me so I can remind myself how much I hate Microsoft and their silly little games.
I'd switch to Mozilla in a heartbeat but for on tiny little problem: I'm addicted to the slick WYSIWYG editing box in Radio. I know, its silly, but I tried it and it was just too much work to enter all the HTML by hand. I think this is a hurdle that open source has to cross. The innovators will use it because its open source and be willing to put up with all kind of pain to do so. The early adopters will want to use open source, but be driven back by problems like the one I describe above. The late majority won't use open source until its the software that meets their needs better than closed source software. No amount of philosophical chest thumping will change that.
09:26 AM | Recommend This | Print This
Licenses for Radio
If you're a State of Utah employee using Radio to create a blog and you're listetd on my utah.gov blogroll to the left, you can contact Cherilyn in my office for a license number. As I've said, I'm willing to buy 100 of them.