On Wednesday 09 March 2005 19:43, Jacqueline McNally wrote: > Certainly, MSFT are targetting enterprise customers with a lot of > related and tentacled products.
This is up-market flight. Historically, it has proven to be a dead-end. > But you do need fairly recent > hardware and the MS Windows OS to run the new office offering. Market leaders under assault from disruptive technologies typically turn to more tightly integrated solutions, and that is the case here. As Ian said, there is a much bigger market for modular solutions. I could well see the future unfolding like this: Microsoft continues to do well in its traditional base. However, companies like Novell in South Africa, HP in Asia, and Linspire in Venezuela (and elsewhere in Latin America) experience significant growth from FLOSS sales on the desktop. Their growth goes ignored by the mainstream press in Europe and certainly in North America, just like the press is ignoring the growth of Linux on cell phones in Asia. Then, like Christensen says here, the day of convergence arrives. Cell phones have become portable computers. vMail (voice messages) have replace text email in Asia and parts of Europe. vMail provides solutions to Latin Americans and Africans, who were never locked into the desktop to begin with. Just like Deutsche Telecom is doing with t-Mobile, North America will experience an invasion of providers from Asia. Latinos visiting or immigrating to North America will bring their solutions. MP3 / Ogg Vorbis players will be broadcasting playlists to consumers' car and home stereos, because people will insist on having their playlists with them at all times. In North America, people will get tired of formula reality shows, and will be tuning into the Internet for videos created by other users. Teenagers will start it, of course, by sharing small videos of themselves doing silly things. Gradually, the videos will get larger and larger. MTV will pick up on those videos, and incorporate them into their content. MTV will also have begun aggregating the best video blogs out there, and some will like the Creative Commons or Magnatunes or Michael Robertson will have started a massive video blog aggregator for a weekly program available on demand called "Funniest Home Video blogs". Famously, it will feature videos from all over the planet, in various languages. None of this will require Windows Media Player. Meanwhile, more and more movie theaters will get sick and tired of paying Hollywood 80% of their box office take plus a slice of their popcorn sales. They will start running non-stop videos in part of their cinemas where they invite teens to come in and hang out and have parties. The other parts of their cinemas will show a few blockbusters, but other parts of their cinemas will show "the best of" videos on a weekly basis. Microsoft and Disney will watch their market shares erode. Then, the Creative Commons, ccMixter, and / or Magnatunes will get a major hit. Just like kids today remix albums to be DJs, then they will have their images broadcast super large on one screen as they instantly remix images of the crowd with images of video submissions brought in by members of the crowd, just like today people bring in their iPods to have the DJ play selections from the crowd's iPods. The big hit will originate from a scene like that. None of this will require proprietary formats. A few companies will still be using Microsoft Office for moving documents back and forth within the company, in circumstances where perfect control and tracing of documents is essential. But all of those kids will be using Linspire or Xandros or Novell or someother service that lets them download OOo AND music AND videos AND beam it around their homes and to their cell phones. (Linspire's MP3 Beamer can already do this with music). Much of this scenario is already in motion, with Novell and HP doing deals in Africa; Linspire doing deals in Venezuela and Mexico; IBM doing deals in Brazil; Sun and Monte Vista doing deals in Asia; Sun's deal in the Ontario (Canada) schools; Novell (SuSE) in Germany; Mandrakesoft making progress in France; and of course, Ian Lynch is converting the entire UK single handedly (snicker). Microsoft has warned Munich about the dangers of being an island, but the irony is that it is the US which has the most to worry about being behind. The very poor region (state) of Extremadura, Spain, has 1 computer for every two kids in EVERY classroom in Spain. Many schools in San Francisco have NO computers available for instruction during the class day. here is the link for the Linspire - Venezuela deal: http://www.digitaltippingpoint.com/content/view/58/39/ Here is the link for the HP South Africa deal: http://www.digitaltippingpoint.com/content/view/57/39/ Here is the link for the Linspire MP3 beamer device, which those of us who attended OOoRegiCon saw. Click on the little picture of the beamer in the middle of the page: http://www.sub300.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
