tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post113434574630077922..comments2024-03-25T21:41:06.801-07:00Comments on Mobile Opportunity: "Software as a service" misses the pointMichael Macehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-11900288878920620692010-12-12T23:37:56.446-08:002010-12-12T23:37:56.446-08:00>>a resurrection of OpenDoc in some new fash...<i>>>a resurrection of OpenDoc in some new fashion</i><br /><br />Don't toy with me, Walt. I spent too much time at Apple dreaming about what OpenDoc ought to grow into.<br /><br />Next you'll have me fantasizing about the rebirth of Hypercard.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-86858067247078442072010-12-12T19:34:56.050-08:002010-12-12T19:34:56.050-08:00“I don't see how Microsoft could sell enough a...“I don't see how Microsoft could sell enough advertising on a Word service to make up the couple of hundred dollars in gross margin per user that it gets today from Office…”<br /><br />No, not for desktop software. But why not for WP7? They could be quite happy to give away the basic inter-module communication APIs, knowing that every install was on a Microsoft-licensed piece of hardware.<br /><br />And of course, your former employer must have a skunkworks project investigating a resurrection of OpenDoc in some new fashion, one that'd be based on its own iLife / iWork packages, but with user-extensions.<br /><br />Which, of course, is almost what the app-focused mobile OS's are all about. So far, Apple has let Androids do more of it (alternate keyboards, skins, etc), but it'd seem they don't need to do TOO much more in the way of inter-process communications before this could be the runaway hit you imply.Walt Frenchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00873789914522579055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1134434361427122422005-12-12T16:39:00.000-08:002005-12-12T16:39:00.000-08:00>>on the internet, the mode of integration is loos...>>on the internet, the mode of integration is looser and more platform independant than it ever was on the desktop<BR/><BR/>Sam, thanks for the comment, and I think you nailed something important. The granularity of the components in Web 2.0 is very different from what I've seen attempted in component software systems in the PC world. That seems to make a huge difference in speed of adoption.<BR/><BR/>The PC component systems I saw were very carefully architected, and allowed you to break things down into extremely small modules. The Be developers working at PalmSource were all over this, and knew how to design very sophisticated systems of hierarchy and inheritance so that a small code change could ripple through the whole OS. It was incredibly powerful, but also hard to create and document, and hard for a developer to learn.<BR/><BR/>It's difficult for me to picture a component system like that emerging from the open source world without the sort of intense leadership Bill Lee wrote about in his comment.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, most of the components I've seen in the Web 2.0 world are a lot more self-sufficient; many of them are almost mini-applications. But you can still string them together to do interesting things. This sort of component architecture is probably less elegant than the desktop component systems I've seen, but far easier to implement and evolve rapidly. And I think speed of evolution is the factor that'll challenge the old-style software companies.<BR/><BR/>MikeMichael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1134420780375855782005-12-12T12:53:00.000-08:002005-12-12T12:53:00.000-08:00Hi, Noticed the Writely mention, came to read abou...Hi, <BR/><BR/>Noticed the Writely mention, came to read about us. :) <BR/><BR/>I agree wholeheartedly. This is very well put, and I linked back to you from the Writely blog. <BR/><BR/>I'll repeat myself instead of linking - I think one additional thing that's interesting is that, on the internet, the mode of integration is looser and more platform independant than it ever was on the desktop. Think of COM or OpenDoc integration versus what's being done with Flickr or Google maps. It's much easier to do something that just...works....across all kinds of localized, mac/win/linux systems. Like it or not, XML, JavaScript, JSON, AJAX and the rest are really, actually, finally, systems that can be used to reach a really broad number of users with minimal hassle. <BR/><BR/>I think this is what's really amazing about the current situation, and it's what reminds me of "Web 1.0", when it was suddenly apparent that the combination of HTML and TCP/IP was a really, really powerful global publishing and communication mechanism. As a salty old desktop developer, it's thrilling.Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01894789228296106686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1134412323929732562005-12-12T10:32:00.000-08:002005-12-12T10:32:00.000-08:00Bill Lee is quite right on two very subtle points ...Bill Lee is quite right on two very subtle points here: that open-source projects often depend on the passion and commitment of a couple of insiders (see Ruby on Rails' David Hannson), and that the biggest key to recent development trends is understanding the motivations and preferences of developers. <BR/><BR/>I'm a lurker in the RoR world, but it's been remarkable to view it as a peice of "user-centered design" with developers as the users. UCD, as it's typically practiced, looks to understand the goals and motivations of users, then design products and feature behavior around them. This is rarely done with development tools or environments, although nearly every developer has a set of hand-crafted tools that serve his or her methods and needs.<BR/><BR/>RoR really did look to address a certain kind of developer's needs and motivations. (And this is another key with UCD: you build for a specific person, not for a demographic, not for a market type. You build for a specific person.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1134379094177602772005-12-12T01:18:00.000-08:002005-12-12T01:18:00.000-08:00Hi Michael,Just found your blog by reference throu...Hi Michael,<BR/>Just found your blog by reference through Chris Dunphy's. <BR/><BR/>I just wanted to make a couple of quick comments (that should be elaborated much more extensively, but I am very tired at the moment).<BR/><BR/>I've still yet to see open source be the panacea that a lot of people have been touting. For lots of reasons I dont ever think it will be. I do believe that it has and will continue to be a positive influence on the innovation we see in software, but its biggest successes have been, and will continue to be, due to the individuals with a high degree of personal dedication to seeing a project through its entire lifecycle. This is rare. It is rare enough in closed development environments, let alone open source. <BR/><BR/>Component software construction is old news. What changes are the methodologies and technologies used to describe and implement them and the application architectures that contain them. <BR/><BR/>There are no substantial modern applications that are not componentized. What appears to be monolithic is more a matter of perspective... it is a matter of whether the inferface definitions of the components are available. <BR/><BR/>Component models of the past and in the future share the same shortcomings. One of the biggest is in the lack of skill, experience, or foresight of the designers to define generally useful interfaces. Theoretical discussions on this topic always focus on narrow (and not so narrow) scenarios in which a small set of components interact. In the real world, a variety of contentious demands make large complex systems stray far away the ivory tower ideal.<BR/><BR/>Usually, discussion of all of these issues lack a solid understanding of software developers--their thought processes and motivations, esp. in combination with the motivations of those they work for (business, technical, or otherwise). This applies to both closed and open source environments. <BR/><BR/>Let's have lunch and I can talk more in depth about why this matters so much. ;-)<BR/><BR/>Bill...Bill Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12688138344372230348noreply@blogger.com