Four short links: 7 October 2009

Ongoing Palm Fail, YouTube Numbers, Plugin Patent Pain, Bivalve-Oriented Architecture

1. Followup to jwz's Palm App Store Fiasco -- redux: still nothing concrete from Palm, but they're saying they'll create a second-rate app store into which open source apps will go (along with apps that Palm hasn't reviewed).
2. Schmidt on YouTube -- the interesting bit for me was Every minute, more than 10 hours of video is uploaded to the site.
3. Company that won $585M from Microsoft sues Apple, Google - The infamous '906 patent granted to Eolas and the University of California was one of the first patents to get the young online tech scene going in 1998. The patent addresses third-party browser plug-ins to run various forms of media as an "embedded program object"—essentially a program that runs within another program. Eolas promptly sued Microsoft for its implementation of ActiveX in Internet Explorer, which set in motion a years-long legal battle between the two companies. and won $585M, now they're suing many large Internet companies. (via Hacker News)
4. IBM Uses Mussels as Sensor Network -- Concerned with the environmental and revenue impacts of leaks during oil drilling, StatOil sought an innovative and automated way to detect leaks. They wanted to replace a manual process that included deep sea drivers. StatOil’s innovation, they attached RFID tags to the shells of blue mussels. When the blue mussels sense an oil leak, they close which prompts the RFID tags to emit closure events. In response to the events, the drilling line is automatically stopped. And, in case you are wondering, this is of no harm to the blue mussels. (via monkchips on Twitter)

Four short links: 29 September 2009

Bletchley Park No Longer Blech, Contest Mania, Palm Process Fails For Free Software, Open Source Web Analytics

1. Bletchley Park May Have a Future -- the UK birthplace of modern computing, where Alan Turing worked during WW II breaking German codes, is dilapidated and in need of major repair. They appear to have a supporter in the UK National Lottery, who have given them a grant to begin work and prepare for further grants. It should be secured for the future as a place of significant historical merit in the development of computing. (See also The Geek Atlas)
2. Google Opens Voting on Ideas to Change the World -- there are a lot of contests at the moment: Project 10^100, Apps for Democracy, Apps for America, a plethora of X Prizes, the Netflix prize, and more. I wonder whether contests are like communities: you need a manager to cultivate and boost interest, or else your contest withers on the vine.
3. My ongoing Kafka-esque nightmare of dealing with Palm and their App Catalog submission process (jwz) -- This is my story about attempting to simply distribute this free software that I have written, and how Palm has so far completely prevented me from doing so. Epic Palm fail. (via Hacker News)
4. Piwik -- Piwik aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics. GPL-licensed.

App Growth, PalmOS vs iPhoneOS

There's a chart I've been meaning to put together for a while to explain why I'm expecting the iPhoneOS to be the dominant mobile platform for at least the next decade. I've been thinking of the role third-party applications played in helping Palm maintain its mobile platform dominance for about that same period, from 1996 to 2006. If you believe Palm apps were a primary cause of Palm's long-term success against Microsoft and other competitors -- apps which were far more awkward to install than iPhone apps, which had a far narrower range of interface or capabilities, and which for a long time didn't even have a network connection to use, and yet which still spawned the term "Palm Economy" to describe the developers making money off their sales -- then what has happened on the App Store over the past year should make the case for the iPhoneOS's dominance. Here, looky:

Over a ten-year period, the PalmOS grew to support about 29,000 apps. The App Store passed that mark about 10 months after launching, and by now has probably doubled it. Developers, developers, developers!

This NY Times article about Palm having trouble winning developers over to its new WebOS platform for the Pre seemed wistful to me considering the lead PalmOS had acquired and has now lost. I don't think that the Pre's design or keyboard -- nor, for that matter, the openness of Android, which I'd personally far prefer (here's why) -- can effectively compete with a platform that has so many developers excited about it, as iPhoneOS does. An ecosystem creates dominance, and Apple has succeeded at that in an incredibly impressive way.

I'll be interested to see if the new hardware interfaces in iPhoneOS 3.0 help Apple to build a hardware ecosystem, too. If so I may double the length of my bet.

Sources for the numbers in the chart:

• PalmOS:
• Dec. 1998 ("thousands")
• Aug. 2000
• Apr. 2001
• Jun. 2002
• Oct. 2003
• Apr. 2004
• Mar. 2006
• iPhoneOS:
• Jul. 2008
• Sep. 2008
• Mar. 2009
• Apr. 2009
• Jun. 2009

Palm's Third Act

2009 marks another year when Macworld and CES are scheduled for the same week. It'll be a great week for product announcements, but it'll also be a week of information overload. RSS feeds will overflow with gadget coverage. For those of us covering technology, it presents some logistical challenges, too. Which conference to attend? I'll be at Macworld again this year, but with Steve Jobs passing on the keynote slot, it's tempting to head to Las Vegas for CES during the second half of the week. Why? Big news is expected from Palm on January 8th.

The last major announcement from Palm was the Foleo in May 2007, a device that was cancelled only a few months later. While the device itself was a failure, the concept was not. Netbooks are quickly becoming a sizeable market with universal appeal. Palm's experience with the Foleo has left much of the tech press skeptical of Palm's coming announcement. Personally, I think this is going to be one of Palm's most important announcements in its history, following its two prior acts - the rise of the Palm PDA in the mid to late 1990s and the company's transition to smartphones after the acquisition of Handspring in 2003. A hit will resurrect the company. A flop will likely lead to its demise.

This is an interesting time for Palm. On December 22, the company announced that it had secured $100 million in an equity investment from Elevation Partners, just four days after a disappointing Q2 FY09 earnings announcement with a substantial net loss for the quater. Palm's CEO Ed Colligan called this an "undeniably difficult period." Indeed. With so much of the smartphone narrative and consumer excitement focused on iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android, Palm has largely been left out.

The far more intriguing Colligan quote from the Q2 FY09 earnings release concerns Palm's upcoming announcement - "We are on track to deliver a breakthrough new platform and products that will bring a truly differentiated smartphone experience to our customers and reestablish Palm as a leading innovator in the mobile industry."

Breakthough new platform...
Truly differentiated smartphone experience...
Reastablish Palm as a leading innovator in the mobile industry...

Sure, press releases are full of language like that, but if you're Palm, you can't make these statements with the smartphone market conditions the way they are and expect to be taken seriously ever again unless there is some shred of truth in these words.

I think Palm has a chance. Not a very good chance, but a chance here and I think it's unfair to be dismissive until we know exactly what Palm has to show us. For Palm to change the smartphone market dynamics at such a critical time, the company needs a hit on January 8th. Anything less than that will turn its third act into its final act.