Tom Regan
Red Hat head says dominance of PCs at end
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"Our opportunity is in the killer applications of the 21st century, not in reventing the PC platform," Young told his audience. Young went on to say that those 'killer apps' (a term used by software developers about programs that dominate all others) would be Internet appliances. Young made fun of how hard it is for most people to use PC, and how little they really know about their computers. That's why Internet appliances that stress ease of use will dominate the market in the future.
Comdex this year has been somewhat of a celebration of the growing importance of Linux. Linux is an operating system developed by Linus Torvalds, a Finn. Unlike Microsoft, which keeps its operating code under lock and key, Torvalds gave away his code, and it has become a cornerstone of the Open Source movement. Anyone can take the basic Linux code and adapt or improve it. While many developers then republish this new work they've done with the code, companies like Red Hat have used it to create commercial models.
While Linux is very popular in the developer community, big business has been somewhat reluctant to switch to it en masse, preferring to wait for the latest version of Windows NT, now called Windows 2000. But companies like Red Hat have shown that robust commercial versions of Linux can be created, and now pose a direct threat to Microsoft's dominance of the business operating system market.
Internet appliances
So just what is an Internet appliance? It's a device that uses the Internet to provide a service, but never goes anywhere near a PC.
One device that has been gathering a lot of attention is the Aplio phone. (We wrote about it several months ago here in Bandwidth.) The Aplio phone allows the user to make long distance calls over the Internet. The actual Aplio device is never connected to a PC -- it's a stand-alone device that instead connects to your phone. Once you program it with information from your Internet account -- a process that takes about five minutes -- you can call anyone else in the world who also has an Aplio phone basically for free. (The one real ccost is upfront -- each phone costs between $150 and $200, depending on retailer.)
The company sees its market as families and individuals with relatives overseas who spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on phone bills each year. And Aplio also recently announced a version that works with DSL and cable modem access, greatly improving the quality of connection.
ZuluTV
One of the problems of attending a show like Comdex is that it's like visiting The Louvre in Paris -- it takes days to see everything. And if you're a small vendor, you can get lost among the huge displays erected by the big players.
But every now and then a small vendor comes up with an idea that draws people regardless of how hard it is to find him or her on the convention floor -- for instance, Joe Smith of Portsmouth, New Hampshire and ZuluTV.
ZuluTV is another example of the Internet appliance, only in this case, it allows the user to broadcast video over the Web for a very small cost.
Anyone who wants to broadcast needs only a camcorder and an Internet account. Smith will then provide a small square box about the size of a handbag called a Video Vamoose, in which you plug the camcoder. The Video Vammose then uploads the live video to ZuluTV via the Internet. The user fills out a simple Web form at the ZuluTV site that tells the world when he or she wants to present an 'event.' Then anyone who uses the RealNetworks G-2 audio/video players (which is available for free and comes built into many new browser versions) can watch the broadcast. And if you don't want to broadcast to the whole world, you can restrict the broadcast to those provided with a password.
The cost of this service? About $2000 for an entire year, which includes the cost of the Video Vamoose and the freedom to hold events whenever you like. Basically, in the same way the Internet made everyone a publisher, applications like ZuluTV make everyone a broadcaster.
"I'm sorry, all our circuits are busy."
Want to know the secret that no one likes to talk about at conventions like Comdex? The phones don't work.
Well, they work for the few that can get a line out. But when you hold a convention that draws tens of thousands of people, like Comdex or Internet World, and almost everyone there has a cell phone and a pager, and those who don't are constantly standing in line to use a pay phone, circuits gets jammed pretty quickly. In some cases it can take 15 or 20 minutes to make a call, and often people can't call you on your cell phone. So much for all those ads that promise service everywhere, all the time.
This can sometimes lead to embarrassing moments for vendors. Yesterday I watched as a representative from Nokia, who was demonstrating how easy it was to write code to create a Web page that could be accessed via the new digital phones that allow Internet access, tried again and again to make a call on one of the new phones, but couldn't get a line out.
Note to myself -- next time, leave the cell phone home.