The Xen's Den

Even CEO don't "get" Origami

2006-04-17T11:00:00.000-04:00

Not that we ever expect CEO's of any major technical company ( except you StevieJ, all except you ) to actually PULL OFF a tech demo without a hitch. But this demo was like a common inning at a losing teams' at bat in baseball. One, two, three strikes, you're outta there.

And this after the announcement last week that they're price target is now in the $800 range ( BEEEEP ! ) . Wrong answer again. It's not like no one's ever said it, but the price target for full-featured ( the "don't make me buy an accessory just to make it usable" model ) is $499 ( or less, in a realistic world ).

Seriously, with the price drops in basic laptop models, and the fact that while these cheap ( re: inexpensive ) laptops don't have all power of their pricier bretheren, they are suitable workhorses. I'm sorry, if you need more than 512Mb and 2 Ghz to process a spreadsheet while mobile, what you need is a faster connection to your desktop horsepower, not a faster laptop. But I digress.

The fact of the matter is that this whole UMPC is just another attempt at reviving the otherwise stagnating "PDA" market. Am I the only one who sees it, or doesn't anyone else get it ?

PDA's have been dropping in sales and revenue dollars, as Smartphones and Treos ( and the HTC PPC Phone editions ) have been increasing in both availability, features, and dropping in prices. I still remember when it cost over a thousand dollars for a PocketPC Phone with WiFi. Now the same phone can be had for roughly half that, or less if you search around here. Just the same, the utility of PDA's themselves have diminished IMMENSELY. So why would anyone in their right mind buy something less powerful than a laptop, for more money, and that "might" only last them powered for 2-3 hours longer ? The answer is, "Geek cred".

For the most part, "Geek cred" is what will initially drive any, if not all sales of any UMPC that hit U.S. shores. And unless the hardware manufacturers can truly trim for form factor and price, they're just as bound to end up in the same downward spiral as PDA's have been in for the past 2 years.

Time to clean up Ajax ? Cometized web browsing.

2006-03-29T16:45:00.000-05:00

So there have been a flurry of new posts about Comet, a "new" technology that extends Ajax to it's next "logical" progression (I want to see Google or Meebo patent TCP connection datagram diagrams. Go on, I dare ya. ).

I came across this post in James Geurts' blog ( Comet...yet another cool name like Ajax ). And this post in Ajaxian (Comets new approach to Ajax applications). Am I the only one who sees it ? For all the FUROR that web designers/developers have clamored about how great the "lite connection" model of browsers was going to make things SOooo much richer for people, now the XMLHttpRequest()'s have come home to roost.

We're even seeing the "wonders of Ajax" on TV ! Of course, I'm referring to the preview "bubble windows" on Ask.com's commercials lately. Mark my words, folks. All this high bandwidth, low latency, "connectedness" all the Web2.Naught companies starting to brandish around makes me think, "FAD". This is like the Web's ( at least the public web, where grandma can get on ) early teenage years. Web 1.0 was the newness of birth, the expectation of it's first steps, the stumbles. But this, this is it's terrible twos ( plus 10 or so ) .

I dunno, I'd like to think this is a GOOD thing, but I'm telling you, I can feel it coming. Just take a look at the diagram. Is it ME, or does the "Comet web application model" just look like a regular push-style connection, with the addition of asynchronous client-side requests thrown into the mix ? Somehow, this doesn't seem like "progress".

To quote Alex from Ajaxian, "The future of the read-write web is multi-user. There is life after Ajax.". Yeah, it's called "connection denied".

All this smells like, "More people have broadband, and we have bigger and faster servers to serve up all that data they'll be consuming" school of business logic, to me. Push on, Comet, Push on.

Is 2.x of anything ever successful

2006-03-21T16:24:00.000-05:00

Below is a draft of something I wrote about three weeks ago, but for one reason or another was too busy to post. Funny thing is here is Scott proving me right !

So here's the entry posteriori to Mr. Rosenberg, but it's not as if it's not anything we didn't already know.

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Written 3/21/06

I read a post by Scott Rosenberg about Web 2.0, and while he didn't come right out and say it ( although I'm sure of you brave souls are already thinking it ), the words are out there.

Yes, yes, I actually commented. Surprise that. All this Web 2.0 Hoo-eey is so 90's. Stop it ! Make something that's actually useful. And no, we don't need 20 different ways from Sunday on how to fill 30 little boxes. Some boxes are more encouraging, if only you could actually copy/paste between folders. Now that, might actually be Web 2.0. But I digress, because this isn't about pushing Web 2.anything on anyone.

Rather it's an analysis going back, oh, about 20 some odd years. Maybe more. Think back, for those of you around to have been on this chunk o'rock back then. Dos 2.0, marginally better ( it added sub-directories, yay. ) than 1.0 ( I think I know 1 person who actually used DOS 1.1 ). We could fit more files on a disk. That was nice. But DOS didn't really become "DOS" to most of us until 3.0 ( Support for 20Mb Hard Disks, yes ! ). Step forward to Windows 2.0. My brother-in-law still has his 5.25" disks for the 1.03 SDK, but maybe that's not something to brag about. Anyway, this is when Windows really started to be seen by more folks than just people who cared about PageMaker(R). Overlapped Windows, wow. Or OS/2. Which in and of itself was supposed to be the "next big thing".

So whether you look at Web 2.Naught as "the next big thing" or not, hang on, the internet startup biz is going to get messy again.

How Origami of you

2006-03-09T13:27:00.000-05:00

So everyone's been wondering the what and where behind Microsoft's (Un)Origini, I'm sorry that's, "Origami". To hear Robert Scoble talk of it, it's as if the heavens have parted, and portability has been shined upon us by the G_ds of the Northwest. Bah !

I remember about 10 years ago, going to a local OfficeDepot, cash in hand, because of this wonderful little device made by Compaq ( sigh. How we mourn thy absorption into HP. ). It ran at 33Mhz, had 2MB ( that's 2 Megabytes to you plebe's ) of AA-battery backed ram. What, you expected Li-Ion ? It came with a 240x480 pixel 2-bit greyscale display. And it ran what we thought was the portability savior of us all. Well, I did anyway. My brother-in-law/best friend, said, "It'll never take off". That, kind readers, was Microsoft Windows CE 1.0 for H/PC ( Handheld PC's ).

And now Engadget says it's a Paper Tiger. One word. DUH ! Since all this hoo-haa about Origami came out, the press monster ( and I don't single out any particular media outlet on this ) has been in full albeit lumbering motion forward to saturate aggregators both great and small, and supposedly satiate a need to know from all corners of the globe.

Origami is an art. UMPC is not. It took approximately 8 years ( 1996-2004 ) before a really usable Handheld PC-like product came out of this whole Windows CE business ( I'm referring to the HTC BlueAngel/TMobile MDAIII/O2 XDAIIs I use ). And while UMPC has a lot more of the parts that would make a really mobile PC a workable solution, they're still back to the drawing board of making it truly usable for more than the ultra-casual-usage mobile user.

Everything has to start somewhere....

2006-01-11T11:11:00.000-05:00

So I finally succumbed to the forces of the universe and decided to SAY something out here.

I suppose I should start by saying that there'll be no wishy-washy posting here. Sure, that might drive down traffic around here, but then again, I'm not exactly expecting a beaten path to my door. It's not like I'm writing an auto-biography here. Just a place to keep some things in perspective.

Enjoy your stay, say what you have to say, but please wipe your shoes before coming inside.