What is the next big thing?
Submitted by Uglee on Mon, 04/05/2004 - 16:25.
This article has been published for paper media, please do not reprint for a certain online and a certain family.
Last October 7th, California Mountain View's newly opened computer historical museum, some of the Silicon Valley fight, the respected legacy of the old, and the hearing of the old people discussed an unbearable topic:
What is the next big thing?
In the past 30 years, Silicon Valley created three miracles: semiconductor technology in the 1970s, personal computer in the 1980s, and Internet in the 1990s. So where is the next decade of Silicon Valley? The Churchill Club and Garage Technology Ventures discussed these topics together to explore this topic.
And in fact, this history
Silicon Valley 4.0's large events have not been squeezed out, except for the 15-US dollar on the website, as well as the attention of the media.
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In the context of global economic shrinking in Baden, the IT industry has not been unlocked. Many industrial giants are crowded in a precarious castle. Every possible export is crowded with a lot of looks that are suspected of hysteople. Although the scene is still well-off for many people, no one knows tomorrow. Where is the big cake?
Let's take a look at the story that happened in each field in 2003.
1, personal communication
This is one of the few days still moist, but the 2003 communications industry has not brought too many surprises. 3G technology prospects become confusing, the huge investment of the network makes operational business, but the whole industry has not found the Killer App in the dream, whether it is MMS, or Web / Email / IM, can not resist the burden act as savior. At the device, O2 XDA / II, Orange SPV / 2, Treo 180/270/300/600, Sony-Ericsson P800 / 900, is called good seat. Only NOKIA's 76xx, 36xx went to the mainstream market, but did not ignite the MMS business as expected.
The biggest highlight of the entire industry is still
RIM-a family relying on the perfect Pushmail background service to sell hardware capabilities and expensive
Small company in the BlackBerry Email terminal. Industry leader
NOKIA is also finally licensed with RIM's BlackBerry technology to be prepared in this field.
Despite
Gartner's data strong support, although RIM has successfully successful, can the company's Email / web application be a savior of Smartphone or even the entire mobile communication industry? There are at least two discouraged places here:
1. The actual market capacity of RIM will not be worth mentioning the communication industry.
2. The mobile phone platform lacks touch screen and the design of the thumb keyboard also makes the easy-to-use sexual discount of Messaging applications. From this significance, the best Email / Web terminal is Treo's design (TouchScreen QWERTY KB), followed by BlackBerry and Sidekick (QWERTY KB), once again SE P800 / 900 and Pocket PC Phone (TouchScreen), while Series 60 and MS Smartphone are all worst interactive ways: only Num Keypad.
When entering the Chinese market, you may have a more discouraged: 3. China's Email application market is far from North America. China's SMS is big, and North America is completely contrary.
2, PC industry
In the 2003 PC Magzine Technolody Excellence Award, the PC and PC Component two awards awarded the OpterMac G5 and AMD from Apple respectively. Personally, I really like the two tenacious innovative companies of Apple and AMD, but these two awards are taken away by the company of non-industry leaders, is it not explained in this field, the industry's navigator has lost motivation ?
The mainstream PC hardware industry is already a thorough Commodity Business, and the entire 2003 is also getting new. It is still the improvement of the overall frequency of the frequency, the increase in the number of graphics card transistors, and the like. AMD64 technology, from the market's point of view, is the starting point of AMD subversion Intel in the personal calculation field. At 64 personal calculations, itanium's prospects are quite embarrassed because it is not compatible with 32-bit X86 instructions. However, whether it is IA64, or AMD64, it is facing a very serious problem when entering the consumer market: lack of software support. This is not difficult to understand. In fact, as Dell said, in the field of personal calculations, consumers' demand for 64-bit technologies is not strong. There is another scenery in the server field.
The 2003 server market has a relatively good performance. From a technical point of view, this is benefited from the price of server products of the IA architecture. HP, IBM, and Dell have launched a large number of IA architects low-end server product lines, but also achieved a good job; the other giant sun in the server market, the movement is slow, missed a good opportunity, and it Blade technology is also a bit life. The growth of the server market has benefited from the recovery of the Internet industry. It is precisely that all online service business is rapidly developed, including various Media download services, the rapid development of online game business, and more and more SMEs improve Informatization operation degree.
In terms of software, Microsoft succeeds after "You should use the laptop" concept, "you should have the concept of" buying two household computers ". The launch of the Windows Media Center version is immediately supported by Dell and Sony. More than 40 PC manufacturers have now launched a MC version of Windows-based PC products, but just as
Cooper said: "Stuffing a Bunch of EXISTINGTINGIES INTO A COMPUTER BOX HARDLY CLASSIFIES AS The Last Word in Converge. Even wall-to-wall adventising can't change That reality." (Put a pile of existing technology into the chassis It is not integrated at all, even if it is on the wall, it will not change this fact.)
Media Center is not a new concept. As early as 2001 Apple is a Digital Hub Strategy. If the apple that is fine is failed, I can't think of what I will make Microsoft success. As for why DHS failed, there is something that is very interesting here.
discuss.
A very interesting data is given in the discussion above:
The average of the American TV set average for 7 hours and 40 minutes! Perhaps it is being heated, combined with Compaq's HP high flag is ready to enter
Digital TV. However, if Digital TV can be entangled with PCs as computing industries, only the market can answer this question.
3, PDA
In 2003, the PDA market was tenacious in a sorrow. The big events of this year include MS Windows Mobile 2003, Palmone and PalmSource split, and Palmone merged Handspring walks on Smartphone. Although the global PDA shipments are slightly reduced than the previous year, it is actually the success of HP and Palmone. HP launched 7 products in a breath in the third quarter, and the PDA market is turned into the PDA market; and Palmone also changed the original calm style, fast hardware upgrade, cost-effective Tungsten E, high-cost Tungsten E, high-cost entertainment products ZiRe71, make it out It has been a solution to the global shipments and last year.
Although there is a harshone listening to the market by SmartPhone, from the actual market sales, PDA still has a place. However, if we return to the starting point of the computing device to review the development of the PDA in the past year, there will be a feeling of a lost direction. A essential factor in a consumer-level computing device is: interactive mode (display and input), computing power (CPU, memory), connectivity (device, and network), storage capability (capacity and media exchange). The current PDA product, whether Palm or PCKET PC, has exceeded the needs of the application, but the lack of storage and connection power limits its function. The 2003 wireless data network (GPRS / CDMA) has developed very fast, but unfortunately, the popularity of Bluetooth mobile phones and wireless content services are far from expected, which greatly affects the development of PDA products.
The technical highlight of PDA products in 2003 is GPS and Game Console. Gartner said that a large increase in IPAQ in Europe, a large part of the reason is bundled GPS modules; in the United States, Garmin launched IQUE 3600 equipment has also been sought after by the market. In China, the number of GPS devices in 2003 also has great improvements, but there are not many cars in the country, the lack of map resources, and the impact of the city's elevated roads, this market is not like Europe and the United States. Aggregation growth.
Zodiac2 from Tapwave is the most eye-catching product in 2003. The rumor says that there are many engineers in Tapwave from the development team of Newton that year, the strength can not be underestimated. In the market, Zodiac did not be popular, to a large extent, because Tapwave did not have enough financial resources to support huge market promotion and sales, and currently only online sales of a sales method. At present, Zodiac needs a strong brand support. Relative to better products, find a good buyer to buy ourselves more realistic strategies. Without huge funds and brands, Zodiac can take much away from one sweat. The Game Console field is not a woman who is not concerned. Nokia is ready to play a new world, Nintendo will also launch a mysterious double screen game phone later.
Nintendo DS. The rumor has been a long time
Sony PlayStation Portable will also enter the market in 2004. This cake is not so easy to eat.
4, digital music
2003 is an iPod Big Red of Apple. ITMS (iTunes Music Store) links the iPod and 99 cents music download services, and has won the reputation of "I finally got out of the business model innovation". On the download of the service provider, Apple signed the five major publishers in North America; on the software, Apple provides the Windows version of iTunes, and the RIO and Nomad are bundled or compatible with this software; on the device, HP will sell its own brand iPod product. But if you think that Apple is unstoppable, then you have a big mistake. Here is a basket of clONE products in the preparation to chase the iPod. Apple is not so easy to successfully break through.
iPod is not the first digital music product using large-capacity storage hard drives, Creative and some Japanese manufacturers have an earlier attempt. But no one will oppose the iPod is the most successful MP3 product. iTunes's software and services, as well as the good operation of Apple is on the one hand; the maturity of micro-hard disc technology is not good.
Another micro-hard disk product worthy of attention - although not used on the iPod - is also concerned. From Cornice
Cornice se products get
PC Magazine's Technology Excellent Awards awards. It is said that Cornice is a small company that is created by the original MAXTOR CTO. Cornice SE has a lot of advantages, including less part design (higher reliability), lower power consumption, and very good prices ($ 70). It is Cornice SE to use in the RIO's MP3 player product. I believe that in the near future, it will appear in various digital products such as PDA, DC / DV.
5, digital image
The market for digital cameras is probably the most crazy in digital products in recent years. Some optimistic prophecies claim that the 2004 digital camera market has more than 100% growth rate. However, the competition in this market is also unprecedented, including traditional camera producers, traditional film producers, consumer electronics manufacturers, major PC manufacturers, and even PC peripheral providers enter this field.
In 2003, the film manufacturer received huge challenge, Kodak lay off a large number to turn business to digital imaging equipment. However, this may be a good thing for PCs, especially printer vendors. The demand for Photoshop factories and printed will increase. EPSON / Canon / HP and other printer manufacturers have introduced products that can directly support Flash card printing.
From a technical point of view, several products in the 2003 digital image market are: Olympus takes the lead in launching Digital SLR products, based on new standard 3/4 system E1 cameras; Canon launches standard DSLR camera in size E300D. The launch of these two products can be said to be amburiful with the film camera. Sigma from digital camera products has never launched a SLR D9 in 2003, and the original Birth of this product is its three-layer CMOS Shoto. Foveon X3 5M CMOS Direct Image Sensor. This is also the technical product of PC Magazine Technology Excellent Excellence, you can learn more details on its website.
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The next big chance
Although it is full of impetuous and anxious emotions in each field, at least one giant is awake. Carefully pay attention to the number of PC MAG's award winners, you can find that the opportunity will appear.
1. In the Finalist of Component, one is: Broadcom Airforce Onechip BCM4317. This is a very competitive embedded device WiFi solution that provides a complete single-chip design on the area of thumb, and has low power and low cost advantages. 2. Also in the Finalist of Component, there is Centrino Pentium M in Intel. In the explosive development of WiFi technology in 2003, Intel's centrino is not available.
3. In front of Protocol, the award-winning technology is 802.11g. There will be support for this standard in the next version of Centrino.
Intel's goal is clear, whether there is no 64-bit personal computational market, Itanium is not suitable for this field. And strong promotion of wireless broadband technology, can extend the life cycle of IA32 products on a personal terminal; at the server side, I can quickly drive the IA64 into the market; but Intel itself provides a large number of network chips and network equipment solutions. It can be said that its strategy has turned from Power The PC to Power The Internet.
Intel's centrino is just the beginning of Wireless dream, and its next step -
WiMAX- will definitely let you eat it. WiMAX is based on IEEE's upcoming 802.16d standard, and WiMAX has extended operating frequencies to high-band 10g to 66G, and Intel claims that its final product can cover 30 miles of urban distance range and Realize the speed of 70 Mbps.
Intel's first mobile operator starts to actively build a new Internet world and is aggressive. Some operators from the United Kingdom, India, Hong Kong, Brazil and Mexico have begun to actively test and evaluate this technology. It is still difficult to estimate what impacts from WiFi and WiMAX for the entire industry - including local service providers, long-distance service providers, internet accessers, and mobile operators - but they can be sure that WiMax is in those The last kilometer is in a disadvantaged small company can stand on a more fair starting line to start a new round of business competition. For example: assuming a station can provide voice services for a cell, while the previous line resources that are treated as a barrier are likely to become a heavy maintenance burden.
Last Hurdle
In a sense, the PC is the final barrier for each person. The cost of PC, learning curve, ease of use, complexity, easy maintenance, and portability make it unable to become a device that is like a mobile phone. But why is Apple push Digital Hub Strategy, and Microsoft also effects an Media Center? The answer is simple: PC, or Mac is their main source of profit.
Including Apple's iPod, in fact, you can also fully conceive another way of working: give it a simple OS, an Internet access method, can be an Ethernet base, or a mobile phone connection line (Sprint PCS can provide Up to 100kbps rate), ITMS can still work - but there is no need to the MAC or PC on this chain.
There are considerable applications that can be implemented directly across the PC, including VoIP, IM, EMAIL, Web Browsing, Content (NEWS, EBOOK ETC), Media (Music, Video etc), Game, and even some distant streaming. Most applications in this don't need you have Giga Hertz's CPU, Hundreds of Mega's RAM, Gigabyte's storage capacity, optical memory, and so on. Some simple applications and even keyboards and color screens can be discarded. Almost $ 50, you can do some work you have done with $ 500 PC. In fact, there are some pure Internet Appliance to begin, including the PS and Xbox game console that can access the internet battle, there have been WebPads that have appeared, and some network radios that can directly listen to the Internet radio, including that BlackBerry You can also think of it as a Dedicated Email terminal. These products will undoubtedly have a larger target user group in the era of Wireless Anywhere. Future digital TV - may be more far in the future - is also entirely possible to become a video terminal through Internet. The iPod class player, and e-books or e-newspapers that have never achieved large success may find a location suitable for you in the Wireless era.
Anyway, Time to Leave Your PC.
What's the next big thing
To accurately describe this new Internet Avenue, it should be Wireless Broadband Internet. The Ministry of Information Industry may use the "Information Magnetic Suspension" or "Information Air Corridor" to name WiFi or WiMAX standards.
From the server, if the Dial-Up / Fibre Internet is the Information Network, the Internet is an application Internet. From the user's point of view, Internet moves from Connecting Machine to Connecting People.
For any industry, Wireless Intent is dangerous and opportunities. Danger comes from business integration in different fields, each competitor must face new opponents from another field, and may learn a new way of operation, like film manufacturers and consumer electronics, in the field of digital cameras. And the opportunity comes from the omnipotent performance of the Internet (if there is an Internet Moore Law?), There will be more new business or business models.
PDA's future
Under such an opportunity, do you believe that the PDA product will eventually disappear? You agree to the statement of communication vendors, they can put so many applications into a small volume phone and does not sacrifice ease of use and comfort?
Remember? After the Multimedia PC, it is the savior of the Internet into the PC industry; history is the amazing similarity, after MultiMedia Handheld, the Internet is also the Internet to save the handheld computing industry.
Although the OS-based computing system cannot reflect its software resource advantage in Dedicated Device; however, the interactive mode of its one pulse, relatively low application development cost, and the flexible reduction ability of embedded OS still make it guaranteed relative to ProPrietary OS The advantages. Both Palmos devices or Pocket PC devices:
1. Detach from PC (Microsoft may be very reluctant to get out of this step). Use Internet to implement Content Distribution, or use things like Dock Station with mature and inexpensive CD-ROM as media. Use Internet, wireless connection capability (IR or BT) or Flash card as a data exchange method. 2. Equipped with high speed Internet access, preferably WiFi, followed by Ethernet / Modem Dock.
3. Provide value-added services, VoIP / Video Call, IM / Email (QWERTY KB), news download, e-book download, music / comic / movie download (preferably built-in Cornice SE is a large capacity storage device).
People from the mobile communication industry often say: Mobile Phone is a must-Have. --Don't Believe It! This is just more exaggerated to describe the importance of Mobile Phone - but it is certainly not an important point, or how will people live in 1990? How important will PDA? This depends on the application. If more and more important applications come to the PDA, and they are also easy to use, the PDA will also be described as Must-Have.
Final - a Few Thoughts
It has been almost 10 years ago, has a Venus program that is the purpose of installing a browser on a rice cooker. At that time, the Internet was a pure information network, and the IT industry was started to consume electronics to put information application to home appliances. 10 years later, this Convergence is ideal, there is a realistic opportunity, but it is completely opposite: Move various original applications to backbone built by information technology. This is not difficult to understand, think about the history of music, from the gramokes to the tape drive, then go to the CD machine, and then go to the MP3 player, and then break through the Wireless Streaming that stored restrictions. Our application needs have never been changed, but technology allows us to make more comfortable and more free and more free and more restrictions.
I am NOTNOLOGY GUY. I Understand Technologies, But I am Not Excited About Technologies. I am Excited About Applications. It's all about applications and functionality. ---- Jeff Hawkins
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Broadband and Wireless are a pair of twin brothers who depend on each other. The former makes many applications become possible or more practical, while the latter provides users with a good comfort. This should be called technological humanity with a fashionable words.
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If everything is expected, Intel will be the biggest beneficiary of this WiFi / WiMAX revolution. This company with Silicon Valley grows, not only maintains the leading position of semiconductor technology and design technology, but also provides powerful driving for the development of the industry in the 20-year PC revolution. With the size saturation growth of the PC industry, the center of gravity of IT productivity tools move from the PC to Server, Intel has again strongly promoted the hardware development of the Internet application platform. This kind of courage makes people see Groove created. The spirit of "only paranoid can survive". Salute to Intel!
