Dana Blankenhorn puts in writing something that I’ve been thinking (and practicing) for some time: the destiny of any fixed PC is to become a server, always on and always plugged into the Internet. (Hat tip to Emergic.org.)
This should portend at least a product modest strategy change if you’re in a telco. All those million-dollar voicemail systems, address books, directory servers and messaging gateways aren’t going to go away. But their relative technical and economic importance is going to decline. Users won’t expect to host their address book with every service provider they ever touch. Instead, they’ll have it at home, accessible via a web service. The same will happen to all their other data. A few, wanting a more “business class” service will pay for someone else to host it. But information flows to the edges, so why build a business model that tries to push it uphill?
(It should also suggest a change in product strategy if you’re at Microsoft: ever more complex client operating systems may be exceeding user needs.)
One of my reasons for going alone was that I wasn’t prepared to pay a 3rd party to hold all my emails, but I also wanted access from any client PC. Locally downloading was not an acceptable solution. As users generate huge amounts of pictures and (in future) videos, self-hosting becomes a more attractive propsition. Why take your iPod to work when you can just stream your music from home? Why can’t I have all my voicemails forwarded to my home server whene I can process and access them with any software or device I want? Why do I have to wait for a centralized telco system to be installed to get the features I like?
At home, I’ve got a Linux server what I set up myself. I use it to host my email, a few pictures for the web, act as a file and print server. I know I’m not alone. But within 48 hours of be flying to Europe for Christmas, I was stuck. There was a power cut back in Kansas City. My server happily powered itself back on when the power returned. However, unknown to me it got stuck at boot prompt asking me if I wanted to repair a possible glitch in the file system caused by improper shutdown. All I could tell was that it had disappeared from the Internet. The only possible resolution was to quickly buy some hosted email space and redirect all my domains to point there instead. There’s a market here to package up a more reliable solution. And I can’t imagine many people wanting to configure a NAT router to forward service appropriately. But I can imagine people not wanting to pay AOL amazing amounts of money for a piddly dot of hosted space.
Another development that will have to occur is to make PCs less intrusive. Quiet PCs are becoming a modest phenomenon. I myself ripped out the noisy original PSU fan and hard drive from the server, and put in new quiet components. In a classic “Innovator’s Dilemma” fashion the PC market seems to be overshooting the performance needs of the public in terms of CPU cycles and polygon rendering. At the same time, it falls short as a piece of unobtrusive information plumbing that you can live with. A business opportunity beckons.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 06:12 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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What you are missing is a separate management interface to the linux box, preferably a wireless one ;)
Seriously, I'm of like mind. I threw out my wireless router/gateway/firewall thingamabob and built a silent VIA-based linux router/firewall system. Three days into Christmas break the firewall software froze and I was unable to access my home network. Definitely agree that there are business opportunities here! And the idea of a backup wireless link is not that crazy after all! If only my wireless service provider offered additional clients at marginal cost I'd put that GPRS card to use!
BTW I find your blog very interesting and empathize with your thoughts and observations (I work for a large telecom equipment manufacturer!).
Posted by: at January 19, 2004 09:29 PMYou're right about "less intrusive" being key. The PC in our living room is *never* on except when somebody is actually using it, because the damn thing is just too bloody loud. Give me a reliable, headless, fanless box capable of supporting a terabyte or so of storage (I want all my photos and music on it, uncompressed) that I can shove in a cupboard and forget about, then we'll talk.
Oh, and if it's going to be visible from the internet then it also needs a trusted source from which it can automatically upgrade itself with critical security patches without requiring any intervention from me.
I'm still not going to run my actual public website on it, though, unless you can also sell me a cupboard with redundant fast network links and a reliable power supply.
Posted by: at January 21, 2004 04:16 AMA lot of great insights here. Hope you don't mind if I link to it in another Mooreslore item on the topic.
All the best...
Posted by: at January 21, 2004 07:18 AMI think the bottom line is that users such as ourselves want technology that we can adapt, rather than technology that defines us.
You mention databases, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done for searching databases. Who do you want to define how you search your database?
Posted by: at January 21, 2004 09:15 AMI hope Tivo are reading this! It's about time they made the Tivo as quiet as a VCR.
Come to think of it, maybe I should rip out the HDD and PSU and replace them with quieter models. Hmmm...
Posted by: at January 22, 2004 11:44 PMAmusing that I'm reading this the day after I solved the problem you describe. A friend who's a tad bit more entrepreneurial than I has contracted for a dedicated server at EV1 Servers (ww.ev1servers.net) and is looking for 3 "co-owners". I'm now one, and I get 25% of the disk space, allowable domains, and data transfer for 50% of the cost. He's already got one other customer, so he's covering his costs now, and he's looking for one more. This is a good deal; I'll end up hosting a number of domains (including a purely family one named for the dog), and my buddy will be busy selling lightweight web and email hosting on his 25% of the server, and being paid a little something for his doing the majority of the admin and support work and being on the hook for the monthly fee. Admins can reset the box if it's locked up (and replace the box in 24 hours if something burns up), it's very well power protected, plenty of redundant bandwidth, robust DNS, even backup MX hosting. Soon I'll have secure IMAP email access, with the ability to store more than 1 GB of mail, the ability to host a weblog and WIKI, mailing lists, etc. all of which are expensive or unavailable from most service providers or hosts. Another benefit is that because I'm not hosting anything at home, it abstracts me completely from worrying about my home Internet connection; I'm completely agnostic my home Internet connection.
It seems you have contemplated a lot on this issue...
Recently our management decided to make quiet PCs in our office. I can say it was an excellent idea, now the atmosphere is much better for creativity.
Jane Ferth http://astra-design.com/