It has been quite a year. But it seems as if that we continue to break down and milestones all the time.
I begin with what happened this past Monday. Steve Jobs emerged from his Medical Leave to roll out iCloud and iOs5. Although the services are not available til the fall, the idea was to simply make the ipod, the ipad and the iphone platform indepedent by allowing the data to reside in the "cloud". I thought Steve Jobs' "description' of the traditional View of the Cloud was quite interesting--but I think those of us who seem to try and get what is going with the h technology are of the view that there is truly more to the "Cloud"than simply it being a "disk in the sky". The idea of further music and document collaboration is also quite fascinating as the deadline of the fall rollout approaches.
What I find especially fascinating about iCloud is how some of the more "niche" players are going to be sidelined. I am specifically thinking players like SugarSync, dropbox and others who have tried to take advantage of the rise of the Cloud and create a niche for themselves. I also continue to wonder about companies like Evernote and others who have worked to create a further niche for themselves to help end users be more productive. I have used all of them and have found all of them to be "interesting" to use. One service I am particuarly fascinated with is Pandora. What Pandora has tried to do goes in the face of what Apple is doing with iTunes and now iCloud. I will be continuing to assess it and comment on it in the weekly "Tech Watch" writeups here in "outsiders".
I have also been assessing the proceeding of the Annual All Things Digital Conference. This is the 9th such Conference, sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. This was the conference that saw Eric Schmitt, the Google Executive Chairman, come up with the term "The Gang of Four"--Facebook, Google, Apple & Amazon. They are the ones, according to Schmitt, that have the most profound impact on technology today. He did neglect people like SalesForce.com, Microsoft, Adobe and a few others. There is of course, IBM and Oracle too. There is also, Twitter.
I was an early adherent to Twitter. For whatever reason, though, I have not been able to increase my following, yet! I continue to be fascinated with Twitter and my faith was reitrated especially as Twitter was designated by Steve Jobs to be the SMS of choice within iOS5. There is one more thing that I was pleased to see Twitter implement. Implementing an Automatic Shortening of the URL is something that drove me nuts--especially as I sometimes utilized the social dashboard tool HelloTxt to update my status. It seems that Twitter is truly working to tighten its' ecosystem even though it has had to deal with growing pains and turmoil within its' executive team. It is yet to find its' reason to be.
There is no question that the "Gang of Four" are playing a central role--but to create that exclusive "club" is something that thought was quite frankly, arrogant. The one thing that I think is key is content, though. What Bob Iger talked about in terms of original content is absolutely vital. I view it as probably the key that would distinguish and make one rise up. As an example, there are over 200,000,000 Blogs out there. I have not regarded "outsiders" as a blog--but as a platform to write about and comment on a a range of issues that is central to our Global Village succeeding further down the line. That's why things like Singularity, the rise of Social Media, Cloud 2 and Cloud 3 continues to be ever more fascinating.
The founder of SalesForce.com talked about the rise of Cloud 2 and even Cloud3. It is clear that he is at the forefront of it. He started SalesForce in 1999 in his bedroom..and now built it up to a company with over 6,000 employees and some 18 billion dollar in sales. One has to truly, as Regina Dugan of Darpa noted, lose one's fear of failure in order to succeed. This is the story of technology--and can be very much applied to life as well.
One area within Tech that should be of concern is that we are running out of IP Addresses. There are smart phones being sold every day--and the last estimate I saw was that over 450,000,000 will be sold this year. They all need a unique address to communicate w/the Web. IPV6 is the next generation--and today is IPV6 day for all to test it. Apparently, there is some hestitation to adopt it--something that has to be watched.
The biggest problem, though, is that America is falling behind.
What should be of concern in America, though, is long-term leadership. It is gradually being withered away. Others are moving ahead especially in areas of Green Technology which is of profound concern. As Washington is preoccupied with tax cuts and spending cuts, others are spending and investing. The Chinese are building out a Smart Grid. The Japanese have begun a concerted effort especially after the disaster at Fukushima. Times are changing--and the need to be aware is ever more.
The story continues.....
There is always a fascination with War. I have never understood it and will not claim to do so. But there is one War that I have been particularly against--and finally someone has come out to actually say that it has been a failure.
The War on Drugs was launched over forty years ago to eradicate the scurge and cancer of drugs. Billions upon billions have been spent on this so-called War and thousands of the best, brightest and bravest of us have fallen in this so-called War. What I find very very strange is how the usage has gone up despite this so-called War.
The United States, in my view, is the biggest culprit. Ever more quantities continues to come into the United States despite attempts to stop it. The Mexicans continue to fight it out for control of the lucrative drug routes. Calderon, the Mexican President, has been fighting the drug war that has seen over 40,000 people die. It has also resulted in the drug cartels becoming bolder in their actions. The United States, though, in my view has also one more even more important distinction: It is the biggest legal drug market in the World too. I can't believe how people are so medicated and drugged for everything. Drugs seem to be the answer to everything.
There is now, at least, someone who has declared the War on Drugs a failure. The Global Commision on Drug Policy has come out with a report calling the War on Drugs a failure. As I work to further assess the report, what is clear is that a total radical rethink on drugs is necessary. I have written throughout "outsiders" about the absolute necessity for this fact. What will happen is that it will pull the rug from under the bunch of thugs that seem to have the order of the day. It will immediately derive the FARC in Columbia and all the other cults of drugs throughout the world from getting rich at the expense of the rest of society. It will allow a shifting of resources that is ever more necessary in this era of an absolute necessity to do more with less.
Will there be courage to actuallly do this? That's the essential question everyone has to truly think about long and hard.....
As I write this, I am monitoring CNN noting that Osama Bin Ladin has been killed and the US has his body. According to reports, he was killed in a Drone Attack outside Islamabad. This is a huge development that will have profound implications.
More to come!!!
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Mike Pouraryan
