Mental wrote a nice essay about how software developers need to realize that their products have changed, today it's about people. Said in a more jwz way: How will this software get my users laid? One thing that I especially like in Mental's essay is how he talks about software licenses as a social contract, which is really want all licensing of IP is, though few realize it.
The interesting part about the times we live in is that computers are becoming powerful enough to interact with us on a more social level. If you would have told anyone working on a VAX how much processing power would be spent on custom ring tones they would have laughed at you. Today computers do very wasteful things like draw graphical representations of buttons, which does not help you calculate Pi. This is a quote that I think shows this well:
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." ~ IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, 1943.
In general, people mock Mr. Watson as there is obviously more than five computers in the world today. But his intention is most certainly right. If you think about computers as devices to do computation, very few of the computers in use today do that. Sure Sandia, the NSA, the IRS and NOAA need computers to do that, but the majority of people don't want a computer. They want a device, they want something that allows them to continue with the social activities that they use the computer for: writing e-mail, IM, surfing the web, etc. Whether it uses computer technology inside they don't really care.
This isn't any type of revelation, it is well understood by lots of companies. The move to "non-computer" computers is behind Microsoft's development of XBox. And the understanding of the market explains Nokia's Internet Tablet, the 770. In the end, I doubt people will have as many general purpose computers in their lives, they'll be left to developers, hobbyists and governments.
posted Jan 6, 2006 | permanent link
