Welcome to 'tool' confusion
Lets step back for a second: what does the PC and software market look like from a distance? Yep, that's right: a market which has peaked. By now we have figured out what we can do with these machines, and we have pretty brilliant products to do so. Sure, we'll replace our machines once in a while, and we might even buy the occasional update to our favorite software, but there are no big needs there any more which aren't catered for by the industry. And as time goes by, there is less and less need to buy costly software packages, and to invest top dollars in updates to applications which may not even bring anything we really need.
An old problem
Now, all this is not exactly new; the big software companies have been
worried about this for many years. They even reckoned they had found a
graceful way out of there, that's how the ASP model was born, whereby
users would buy software services from an online provider on a
subscription basis. It was all the rage, and by now it is another sector
where uncertainty and doubt are spreading like wildfire.
So lets step back a bit more. What is happening? Well, why don't we turn the question around: what if nothing is happening? What if there is no easy next step for technology? What if there is no need for going any further, at least not in the immediate future? In the sixties, exploring outer space was all the rage. There seemed to be such implacable logic to it: first we put a man on the moon, then on Mars, etc. To infinity and beyond. Well, it didn't really work out that way, did it?
The computer business looks a bit like the space program of the sixties. There is (or rather, was) a lot of starry eyed enthusiasm about what technology could provide. Unfortunately, we have now come to the end of one growth phase--and we don¹t know yet how and when the next one will kick in.
What does that have to do with software? We are facing a technology landscape which is based on simplistic paradigms. Software and hardware companies tend to think that something which can be conceived can also be made to work gracefully. Sometimes this is possible. Often it is not. A technology which almost works is hardly better than one which does not work at all. And even if it does work, there is no guarantee that the public will actually use it.
Which brings us back to HailStorm. A solution that is not driven by user need contributes to 'tool confusion'. There is a rule of thumb which usually works with new technology: if it is stunningly better then what came before, there is a decent chance that it might take off. Think CD vs. vinyl. If it is just an incremental improvement, it might work, but it certainly won't take the world by storm.
Or, put in a more simplistic way: If you have to ask why it's great, it isn't.
A necessary slowdown
The reality of the market is that we are heading towards a slower
development cycle. I'm not talking about a depressed stock market or
lower-than expected sales for computer manufacturers. The depression we
are witnessing is a natural phase of slowdown on a grand scale.
Most analysts only look at these phases from a financial viewpoint, but that is a only part of the story. To understand what is going on, you need to look at technology potential, usage potential, as well as market needs and market desires. Technology providers, both on the hardware and software side, look at the market in a linear way and don't often admit the cyclical nature of things. However, to understand what is happening in the technology sector is that we have entered one of the slowdown cycles necessary for a market to regenerate itself. And all of Microsoft's marketing clout can not change this.
Fostering confusion
Projects like Microsoft's HailStorm initiative are trying to counter this
natural trend, to force users into the next wave of technology. And by
doing so, they actually do the opposite of what they are trying to
achieve. Since the market is not ready for a user-driven consensus on the
new technologies at stake, large-scale attempts like the one Microsoft
just announced are actually contributing to fragment and confuse the
market instead of unifying it. HailStorm is still grounded in the
unrealistic enthusiasm of the world before the dot-com burnout: the
conviction that as soon as there was something NEW users would flock to
it naturally. That users would be willing to pay for something that they
used to get for free. That in order to go on making money, the software
companies have to do something drastically different.
In fact, what is happening in the digital technology market today is quite significant, it has become big enough to support (at least to a limited extend) a huge variety of cutting-edge technologies and/or competing standards. All these technologies are capable to get some limited market share: insufficient to make them a widely accepted standard, but big enough to contribute to the ambient confusion and to foster user fatigue and indifference.
Yes, in many ways, the computer market is more and more like showbusiness, and Microsoft resembles a big Hollywood Studio trying to pitch its next attempt at a blockbuster movie. And viewed under that angle, the company still has a lot to learn.
Andreas Pfeiffer is an industry analyst and editor in chief of the Pfeiffer Report on Emerging Trends and Technologies. COMMENTARY--There used to be a rule in Hollywood for assessing the viability of a film project: if you can't sum up a script in a single sentence, the film will never work. I'm increasingly inclined to think that this rule applies nicely to the software business. And if that's the case, Microsoft should be worried. Project HailStorm (what a code-name!), the recently announced extension to Microsoft's .Net strategy, may not take off as swiftly as Bill Gates would like it. In fact, it may not take off at all, or worse, it could have an adverse effect on the market.
Lets step back for a second: what does the PC and software market look like from a distance? Yep, that's right: a market which has peaked. By now we have figured out what we can do with these machines, and we have pretty brilliant products to do so. Sure, we'll replace our machines once in a while, and we might even buy the occasional update to our favorite software, but there are no big needs there any more which aren't catered for by the industry. And as time goes by, there is less and less need to buy costly software packages, and to invest top dollars in updates to applications which may not even bring anything we really need.
An old problem
Now, all this is not exactly new; the big software companies have been
worried about this for many years. They even reckoned they had found a
graceful way out of there, that's how the ASP model was born, whereby
users would buy software services from an online provider on a
subscription basis. It was all the rage, and by now it is another sector
where uncertainty and doubt are spreading like wildfire.
So lets step back a bit more. What is happening? Well, why don't we turn the question around: what if nothing is happening? What if there is no easy next step for technology? What if there is no need for going any further, at least not in the immediate future? In the sixties, exploring outer space was all the rage. There seemed to be such implacable logic to it: first we put a man on the moon, then on Mars, etc. To infinity and beyond. Well, it didn't really work out that way, did it?
The computer business looks a bit like the space program of the sixties. There is (or rather, was) a lot of starry eyed enthusiasm about what technology could provide. Unfortunately, we have now come to the end of one growth phase--and we don¹t know yet how and when the next one will kick in.
What does that have to do with software? We are facing a technology landscape which is based on simplistic paradigms. Software and hardware companies tend to think that something which can be conceived can also be made to work gracefully. Sometimes this is possible. Often it is not. A technology which almost works is hardly better than one which does not work at all. And even if it does work, there is no guarantee that the public will actually use it.
Which brings us back to HailStorm. A solution that is not driven by user need contributes to 'tool confusion'. There is a rule of thumb which usually works with new technology: if it is stunningly better then what came before, there is a decent chance that it might take off. Think CD vs. vinyl. If it is just an incremental improvement, it might work, but it certainly won't take the world by storm.
Or, put in a more simplistic way: If you have to ask why it's great, it isn't.
A necessary slowdown
The reality of the market is that we are heading towards a slower
development cycle. I'm not talking about a depressed stock market or
lower-than expected sales for computer manufacturers. The depression we
are witnessing is a natural phase of slowdown on a grand scale.
Most analysts only look at these phases from a financial viewpoint, but that is a only part of the story. To understand what is going on, you need to look at technology potential, usage potential, as well as market needs and market desires. Technology providers, both on the hardware and software side, look at the market in a linear way and don't often admit the cyclical nature of things. However, to understand what is happening in the technology sector is that we have entered one of the slowdown cycles necessary for a market to regenerate itself. And all of Microsoft's marketing clout can not change this.
Fostering confusion
Projects like Microsoft's HailStorm initiative are trying to counter this
natural trend, to force users into the next wave of technology. And by
doing so, they actually do the opposite of what they are trying to
achieve. Since the market is not ready for a user-driven consensus on the
new technologies at stake, large-scale attempts like the one Microsoft
just announced are actually contributing to fragment and confuse the
market instead of unifying it. HailStorm is still grounded in the
unrealistic enthusiasm of the world before the dot-com burnout: the
conviction that as soon as there was something NEW users would flock to
it naturally. That users would be willing to pay for something that they
used to get for free. That in order to go on making money, the software
companies have to do something drastically different.
In fact, what is happening in the digital technology market today is quite significant, it has become big enough to support (at least to a limited extend) a huge variety of cutting-edge technologies and/or competing standards. All these technologies are capable to get some limited market share: insufficient to make them a widely accepted standard, but big enough to contribute to the ambient confusion and to foster user fatigue and indifference.
Yes, in many ways, the computer market is more and more like showbusiness, and Microsoft resembles a big Hollywood Studio trying to pitch its next attempt at a blockbuster movie. And viewed under that angle, the company still has a lot to learn.
Andreas Pfeiffer is an industry analyst and editor in chief of the Pfeiffer Report on Emerging Trends and Technologies.