The new economy – part 1
Yesterday I read an article from Mark Mills on Forbes about the new Economy, and this morning another article on TechRepublic saying now it’s a great time to be a developer. I agree with both, and as usual, I want to put my own spin to it.
There are 2 key words appear in both articles: Cloud, and Mobile.
The cloud has, and will continue to, fundamentally change everything we do. The term Cloud is a catchy term. What it really means is the as-a-service (AAS) model. (Software-as-a-service, platform-as-a- service, infrastructure-as-a-service, etc.) When an industry moves into a AAS model, it signifies maturity, and the IT industry is finally maturing. Just in the last few months, I bumped into two separate companies who said, “For the last 10 years, we were actually an IT company also doing X.”, and X is their actual business. One of them is the world’s largest hotel chain, and the other is a local public school system. Both of them said they spend so much energy into IT that basically turned them into IT companies over time. Look at any big companies around you, do they have a big IT department? Their own data center? Are you part of that big IT department?
As the IT industry matures, we realize we are wasting resources by having duplicated IT departments in each company doing pretty much the same thing. When I was in Fannie Mae, I keep pushing to have Sun MicroSystems run our data center instead of running our own. My argument was, “Why do you think we, a financial company, will do a better job of running servers than those who’s lives are to run servers.” “Well, security, data behind fire walls, etc., etc.”, my manager said. As the cloud gets better, more companies are realizing giving IT to those who does IT well is a far better and cost effective solution. After all, you would not have a plumbing crew on staff just to have a water cooler in the office, right?
A wrote a blog 3 years ago predicting 80% of IT goes to the cloud. I think have a big chance of being right!
Now, think about what that means. There is currently probably billions worth of IT that sits in different companies in the world. What this trend will mean is that all of those will slowly move to the cloud. This is a fundamental change. When a change this big is happening, there will be lots and lots of opportunities.
I will write about Mobile in another post.
How Steve Jobs changed my life
The Kindle Fire will help push the iPad into Enterprises
Just looking at the last 2 days you know the Kindle Fire is going to succeed. Now I’d like to throw in my 2 cents. I think the Kindle Fire will help push the iPad into Enterprises.
Why? Like a lot of analysts are saying, the Kindle is going to kill most Android tablets. New Android tablets will need to compete on Kindle’s terms. Cisco, RIM, and other enterprise hopefuls will now need to come up with something that is around $200.00 and still usable. Now I am not saying the Playbook will be gone, but it will not be widely adopted.
Also, while the Kindle Fire is going to be ultra successful, Amazon will probably be less Enterprise friendly than Apple. Amazon will focus on media consumption that it does well.
Now may be the Fire will be another iPod Touch (you know the military is using iPod Touches, right?) but it all depends how open Amazon will make their Android app store be. My guess is that they want their app store be as closed as Apple’s.
So all of these point to less Android competitors which leave the iPad free to continue it’s penatration into the Enterprises.
By mid-year 2012 we should know the full potential of the Kindle effect, and if Microsoft didn’t execute Windows 8 well, Apple may finally be able to get into the business market.
NPR’s Report on Patent Issues in the US
Listening to this makes me want to cry:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/play_full.php?play=441&podcast=1
Everybody is getting sued, now what?
Tonight we have a great Meetup over at MoDevDC. The topic is about Patent Infringement lawsuits and how developers can deal with them. Here is an overview of the night’s presentation and discussion topics:
1) What is the overall situation?
We interviewed Florian Mueller, an Intellectual Property Law Expert and founder of the FossPatents Blog. He gave an overview of the current patent situation here in the US and how we can work with the current issues.
Here is Florian’s take on the overall situation.
2) I got sued. What do I do?
A developer’s view is also presented on what one may do upon receiving a letter.
3) Patent Infringement 101
Rick Toering from Womble Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, LLC, gave a high-level description of the steps that are involved in a typical patent infringement defense case. He breaks down a case along with the typically cost of each step.
4) What can we do?
David DiGiammarino from Article One Partners talks about his firm’s work and how crowd sourcing prior art can help the overall situation. The take away point is that if a group of us pro-actively go after patents that are being issued and collect prior arts, we may have a better chance against potential lawsuit ligtigation.
5) Why are software patents such a mess?
Our other organizer, Yermo Lamers, talks about a recent article that he wrote on “Why you shouldn’t be allowed to patent a better virtual mouse trap.” The article talks about someone patenting a virtual mouse trap for a potential game. A patent aggregation company bought that patent and start suing all virus scanning software companies. You can find the original article here.
We then go into a Q&A session with the following panelists:
Rick Toering – Patent Attorney, Womble Carlyle, Sandridget & Rice, LLC
Frances Weber – EVP, Article One Partners
David DiGiammarino – Director of Sales Article One Partners
Jonathan Freeman – CEO, WidgetPress
Yermo Lamers – CEO, App Update
Todd Moore – CEO, TMSoft
With over 80 attendees, it was a lively discussion to say at least.
Some of the questions:
- Why don’t developers put more pressure on Apple and Google?
- Can we file a class suit against these entities?
- Can they sue me if I just offer my app for free?
- How do I know if I infringe their patent or not?
- If I am launching a new product, how do I make sure I don’t infringe in other people’s patent?
- Is setting a LLC good enough?
- Are LLCs in one state better than another?
The meeting went very well and it pave the way for more meetups like this, where we will explore real solutions.
One point that most attendees agree is that the current situation is very dangerous. If we don’t find a solution quick, mobile development community as we know it may well cease to exist. The great innovation that has happened in the last 2 years will stop. We won’t have an app for everything, and we will go back to only big software companies creating products. That would be sad, indeed.
As I see it, we need new ways to defend these cases. The traditional defense cost 2+ million dollars and that is just way over budget for most mobile developers. Just like we productize software products, we need to “productize” the defense. We need to productize prior art search, productize patent search, productize patent litigation and productize settlement negotiation.
I hope this meeting starts a new round of conversation about finding real solutions to this problem.
FISMA / HIPAA Compliance on iOS
Last night I presented at the MoDevDC Meetup on the topic of security on the iOS platform. It was a fun discussion among 50+ local mobile developers.
Synopsis:
In this presentation, I am going to discuss the technical challenges
of how we secure our app (iForm ES) in order to satisfy various
requirements from FISMA and HIPAA. This is a technical presentation
and code examples will be shared.
- The basics: OS level security, keychain, file attributes,
- Getting to jailbreak proof: local authentication, prevent keyboard
cache, local database encryption
- FISMA/HIPAA Compliance: FIPS 140-2, two factor authentication, intrusion prevention,
end-to-end PKI, X.509 digital signature
Disclaimer: This is not a check list of how to get FISMA/HIPAA certifications. We are simply sharing our experience.
Here is the presentation: MoDevMeetup-05042011
And Code Examples
Growing up
When my grandma passed away, I was very sad. We were closed and losing her was painful to me. I was just out of college and i asked, “how come nobody ask me how I feel?” That was almost 15 years ago. As God slowly takes people around me away, I finally started to understand what God is doing. God doesn’t want me to be sad. Its not about me, its about people around me. God is giving me another chance to love people around me more, while i still can. God wanted me to make people around me less sad. God want me to be there for them and say “its ok”. Life is always busy and things are always inconvenient. While I still can, I will be there. I am here.
The world with tablets
I was having lunch with a friend and we chat about the future where most people will use the tablet more than a PC. ( I know, that’s Steve Jobs’ vision, but it’s also Bill Gates’ and also mine. 
) Anyway, he start asking questions like, “but is the tablet powerful enough to handle everything”.
This reminds me of the early day of digital photography when people asked, “wow, if we are taking hundreds of pictures, wouldn’t it cost a lot to have them developed?” “how do I put them in albums?” “what do I do with my baby book if I don’t print all the pictures out?” “So I won’t be able to flip through the pictures?”
With new technology, your behavior will change. There will be give and take but to the better for the most part. I think it will be the same in the tablet world. A world where most ‘computing’ is done from a tablet like device rather than a PC. Some people will love it, some will hate it, most will adjust to it. That’s progress and I like it.
Quick Samsung Galaxy Tab review
Ok. Meant to write this for a while. I have had my Galaxy Tab since launch around November. First impression is that the hardware is impressive. Speed, touch, multi-touch, all on par with the iPad. The thing that I like the most of my Galaxy tab is it’s size. Yes, the in between size. To me, sometimes I want to carry a tablet ( something bigger than the phone ), but it still small enough to fit inside a jacket pocket. I tried carrying the iPad to meet ups and that doesn’t work well. Most meet up events that I go to are setup like a cocktail party. You walk around with a drink, sometimes a snack. In that setting, I found the Galaxy tab to b perfect.
Another good thing about the Galaxy tab, and Android in general, is Flash support. It’s great to have but what I found is that flash is very taxing to the CPU on the galaxy so when flash is on, web site are very slow, even scrolling sometimes crash the device. So I have to turn flash off and only download the movie when I know I want to run it.
Well, that’s all the goods. The bad, I will start with battery life. Actually it’s not too bad but I found myself needing at least 2 sets of chargers to feel comfortable. The real downside to the Galaxy tab, the reason why it can’t beat the ( or come close ) to the iPad is software. From the OS to the Apps. This is my first Android device so there is learning curve. I get that. So for over a month, I force myself to carry only the Galaxy tab and not the iPad. Simply put, Android is designed for engineers while the iOS is designed for consumers. Everything is possible in Android, some just not obvious. I mean, if I need to search google and watch a you tube video to know how to rename a folder, something is wrong with the UI design. The Android fragmentation and lack of control over the market place also makes the overall experience lower than what the Galaxy tab can truly offer.
Now, I’ve heard that the Galaxy tab had very good app support in localized market like Korea and Hong Kong. That may well be the case, but for me, I find Android still need work and the market needs to change it’s rating system so i see quality apps instead of all the useless apps that keeps crashing.
The Android market is growing rapidly so may be very soon the software experience will be at the level of the iOS but for now, 5 stars for the hardware and 2 starts for the software.
Top 3 Needs
Recently a friend of mine asked “what’s your top 3 needs right now”. Here is my respond,
Top three things? These 3 things are always true, but as we get into a different stage, they take on a different meaning.
1. Focus. Focus is no longer, heads down and get the release out. Focus now means don’t get side-tracked with the day-to-day but make sure we are marching toward the right goal 6-10 months from now.
2. Cash flow. It’s rather easy to make financial decision when you have absolutely no money. When we are getting money in and need to spend some money, any small financial decision is critical. It’s far easier to spend money than to make them.
3. Growth/Scalability. As we grow, we start taken on different jobs. Starting to be managers rather than workers. Starting to put in process rather than just getting it done.
OK.OK. More concert needs:
1. Legal support. I am going to engage the lawyer soon.
2. Resources. We have been hiring and will continue to do so. Key is the get affordable and effective resources.
3. Slow down. As we gets traction, it’s very easy to think that we are invincible and thus go too fast.
Sze
