[FYI] Out with the nerds!
[Da wird ein Riesenboohei um die angeblichen und tatsaechlichen
Gefahren des Patentwesens, insbesondere im Hinblick auf Patente auf
computer-implementierte Erfindungen, veranstaltet, aber eine IMHO
wesentlich naeherliegende Schose wird derzeit im oeffentlichen
Bewusstsein ziemlich heftig verdraengt: Das geplante Absterben des
universell programmierbaren PCs. Der PC wird systematisch als zu
haesslich und vor allem zu kompliziert verschrieen. Gadgets aller Art
à la iPod (natuerlich mit eingebautem DRM) sollen ihn ersetzen. Hat
jemand schon mal ein Open Source Handy gesehen? Selbst Organiser -
obwohl prinzipiell mit Linux machbar - wandeln sich immer mehr in
"Black Boxes". Wenn es eines Tages den (erschwinglichen!) Universal-
PC nicht mehr gibt, weil der Markt dafuer ausgetrocknet worden ist,
und Universalrechner nur noch fur Firmen als Server im 19"-Format
handelsueblich sind, wird die ganz grosse Bastelei ab dem
Schueleralter aufhoeren, und ein wichtiger Mechanismus fuer die
breite Dissemination von Programmierer-Know-How und Open Source wird
versiegen. --AHH]
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/53220
[...]
"Die Initiative D21 öffnet für die Best-Ager sozusagen die
abschreckende schwarze Kiste, lädt sie zur Probefahrt ein und stellt
ihnen den Wagen vollgetankt vor die Haustür", erklärte Thomas
Ganswindt, erster in einer Online-Wahl gekürter Vorsitzender der
Initiative. Ganswindt, im Hauptberuf Vorständler bei Siemens, ließ in
seiner Eröffnungsrede kein gutes Haar an der PC-Branche. Er verglich
ihr Ansinnen, häßliche Rechner an die Kunden zu verhökern, mit dem
Versuch eines Autohändlers, einen Audi A6 2,4 in einer schwarzen
Kiste an den Mann zu bringen. Der Händler möge noch so sehr von
überreichlichen Kilowatt-Leistungen und einem Drehmoment von 380
Newtonmeter schwärmen, der Kunde würde sich niemals für die Box
erwärmen. Als Gegenbeispiel führte Ganswindt Apples iPod an, ein
leicht verständliches, schickes und technisch hochwertiges Gerät.
"Wir versuchen sinngemäß, das Auto aus der Kiste zu nehmen" so
Ganswindt. Mit dem ebenfalls von der Initiative unterstützten
Nonliner-Atlas, der "fortlaufend die Topographie des digitalen
Grabens" untersuche, werde man den Erfolg der Aktion überprüfen.
Der ehrenwerte Versuch, den drögen PC zum schicken iPod des Internet
umzumendeln und so die ältere Generation ans Online-Medium
heranzuführen, ist nicht die einzige Initiative der Initiative.
[...]
<http://www.economist.co.uk/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=S%
27%29%28%20%2CQ%217%25%210%23%5C%0A>
SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Make it simple
Oct 28th 2004
>From The Economist print edition
The next thing in technology, says Andreas Kluth, is not just big but
truly huge: the conquest of complexity
?THE computer knows me as its enemy,? says John Maeda. ?Everything I
touch doesn't work.? Take those ?plug-and-play? devices, such as
printers and digital cameras, that any personal computer (PC)
allegedly recognises automatically as soon as they are plugged into
an orifice called a USB port at the back of the PC. Whenever Mr Maeda
plugs something in, he says, his PC sends a long and incomprehensible
error message from Windows, Microsoft's ubiquitous operating system.
But he knows from bitter experience that the gist of it is no.
[...]
Steven Milunovich, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, another bank, offers
a further reason why simplicity is only now becoming a big issue. He
argues that the IT industry progresses in 15-year waves. In the first
wave, during the 1970s and early 1980s, companies installed big
mainframe computers; in the second wave, they put in PCs that were
hooked up to ?server? computers in the basement; and in the third
wave, which is breaking now, they are beginning to connect every
gadget that employees might use, from hand-held computers to mobile
phones, to the internet.
The mainframe era, says Mr Milunovich, was dominated by proprietary
technology (above all, IBM's), used mostly to automate the back
offices of companies, so the number of people actually working with
it was small. In the PC era, de facto standards (ie, Microsoft's)
ruled, and technology was used for word processors and spreadsheets
to make companies' front offices more productive, so the number of
people using technology multiplied tenfold. And in the internet era,
Mr Milunovich says, de jure standards (those agreed on by industry
consortia) are taking over, and every single employee will be
expected to use technology, resulting in another tenfold increase in
numbers.
Moreover, the boundaries between office, car and home will become
increasingly blurred and will eventually disappear altogether. In
rich countries, virtually the entire population will be expected to
be permanently connected to the internet, both as employees and as
consumers. This will at last make IT pervasive and ubiquitous, like
electricity or telephones before it, so the emphasis will shift
towards making gadgets and networks simple to use.
UBS's Mr Coburn adds a demographic observation. Today, he says, some
70% of the world's population are ?analogues?, who are ?terrified by
technology?, and for whom the pain of technology ?is not just the
time it takes to figure out new gadgets but the pain of feeling
stupid at each moment along the way?. Another 15% are ?digital
immigrants?, typically thirty-somethings who adopted technology as
young adults; and the other 15% are ?digital natives?, teenagers and
young adults who have never known and cannot imagine life without IM
(instant messaging, in case you are an analogue). But a decade from
now, Mr Coburn says, virtually the entire population will be digital
natives or immigrants, as the ageing analogues convert to avoid
social isolation. Once again, the needs of these converts point to a
hugely increased demand for simplicity.
The question is whether this sort of technology can ever become
simple, and if so, how. This survey will analyse the causes of
technological complexity both for firms and for consumers, evaluate
the main efforts toward simplification by IT and telecom vendors
today, and consider what the growing demands for simplicity mean for
these industries. A good place to start is in the past.
<http://www.economist.co.uk/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=S%
27%29%28%20%2CQ%217%26%210%22D%0A>
SURVEY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Now you see it, now you don't
Oct 28th 2004
>From The Economist print edition
[...]
Out with the nerds
The evolution of these technologies holds some lessons for the IT
industry today. The first observation, according to Mr Norman, ?is
that in the early days of any technological revolution the engineers
are in charge, and their customers are the early adopters. But the
mass market is the late adopters. This is why Thomas Alva Edison, an
engineering genius, failed miserably in business.? Similarly, in IT
today, says Mr Papadopoulos of Sun Microsystems, ?the biggest problem
is that most of the people who create these artefacts are nerds. I
want to see more artists create these things.?
The geekiness that predominates in the early stages of any new
technology leads to a nasty affliction that Paul Saffo, a technology
visionary at California's Institute for the Future, calls
?featuritis?. For example, Microsoft in a recent survey found that
most consumers use only 10% of the features on offer in Microsoft
Word. In other words, some 90% of this software is clutter that
obscures the few features people actually want. This violates a
crucial principle of design. As Soetsu Yanagi wrote in ?The Unknown
Craftsman?, his classic 1972 book on folk art, ?man is most free when
his tools are proportionate to his needs.? The most immediate problem
with IT today, as with other technologies at comparable stages, says
Mr Saffo, is that ?our gadgets are so disproportionate?.
A second lesson from history, however, is that a brute cull of
features would be futile. As technologies, the sewing machine, the
phonograph, the car and the electricity grid have only ever grown
more complex over time. Today's cars, in fact, are mobile computers,
containing dozens of microchips and sensors and other electronic sub-
systems that Henry Ford would not recognise. Electricity grids today
are as complex as they are invisible in everyday life. Consumers
notice them only when things go wrong, as they did spectacularly
during last year's power cuts in north-eastern America and Canada.
?You have to push all the complexity to the back end in order to make
the front end very simple,? says Marc Benioff, the boss of
Salesforce.com, a software firm that will be examined in a later
article in this survey. This migration of complexity, says Mr
Benioff, echoes the process of civilisation. Thus, every house
initially has its own well and later its own generator. Civilisation
turns houses into ?nodes? on a public network that householders draw
on. But the ?interface??the water tap, the toilet flush, the power
switch?has to be ?incredibly simple?. All the management of
complexity now takes place within the network, so that consumers no
longer even know when their electricity or water company upgrades its
technology. Thus, from the user's point of view, says Mr Benioff,
?technology goes through a gradual disappearance process.?
>From the point of view of the vendors, the opposite is true. ?Our
experience is that for every mouse click we take out of the user
experience, 20 things have to happen in our software behind the
scenes,? says Brad Treat, the chief executive of SightSpeed, a
company that wants to make video phone calls as easy for consumers as
e-mailing. The same applies to corporate datacentres. ?So don't
expect some catharsis in eliminating layers of software,? says Mr
Papadopoulos. ?The way we get rid of complexity is by creating new
layers of abstraction and sedimenting what is below.? This will take
different forms for firms and for consumers. First, consider the
firms.
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