Category Archives: Technology

Dropbox’ Greatest Threat Is NOT Apple.

I read a post on PandoDaily written by Farhad Manjoo.  In it, he outlined his fear for dropbox in surviving as a sustainable business.

In summary, he stated two things:

  1. Backing up files is getting outdated, and backing up the state of a computer is where ‘backupus’ are heading. Although he agreed that, technically, dropbox might be able to execute on that (backing the state of the computer), he suggested, dropbox would not have permission or blessing of Apple to do that on their computers. And since Apple now has a huge portion of the personal computing, they in essence will be their obstacle to victory.

  2. Storage is becoming a commodity. Therefore, in the near future, people will not be willing to pay a premium for storage as they are doing presently for dropbox

I think Farhad may have misjudged the future on which his premise is based. He has imagined a future where most computing will be done on the OS’ we grew up with (Windows, Mac, Linux) and the ones we are growing with (iOS, Android, BB).

In my post highlighting the forked up state of the Android ecosystem, I ended by saying that Chrome OS was Google’s backup because, the open web is OS of the future.  Mozilla is already positioning themselves for that inevitability.

Based on that postulation, I’ll say the web is Dropbox’ main competitor. Most of my computing  and I bet Farhad’s is done on the Web. Communication, i.e email, social (FB and co) and IMs (except Skype) all have their web equivalents which keep the state of our systems. Media consumption is obviously ending up in the cloud. It will be no magic to pause a song on your desktop and continue on your mobile phone. More complex applications will certainly move on in that direction too.

So (how) will Dropbox survive?

One of Dropbox’ biggest risks is its very low switching cost. All I need to do to to switch is this: Ctrl C then Ctrl V and BAM!!, I have left Dropbox behind.

Drew is a smart chap and I am sure he know this and will be positioning Dropbox as the backup for “your Internet”. So while Flickr, SoundCloud, Google Docs provide the service and their states, Dropbox acts as a backup. So when the Feds swoop down on any of these services, mega damage will not be done and  you will not be left wailing. That is assuming Dropbox will not be swooped upon.

Like Farhad rightly said, the cost of storage is plummeting therefore, Dropbox will no longer have the freedom to charge premium for their service. But that should not be a problem since the low cost of storage will mean their costs will come down too.

Dropbox can also start charging a little for things you can do with your data like the ability to search through “your Internet”.

Yes, Greplin is a feature

 

PS: I am eternally grateful to dropbox and you should download it using this very link ;)

I am Oo, founder of GBEDU.FM where I hope to make sense of this business of music. I once tried to kill the business card with OnePage.

Is Google To Blame For The Android Fork Up?

Recently, Amazon launched the Kindle fire . Also confirmed is that the kindle Fire would be running Amazon’s own version of Android which will be fully customised to integrate with Amazon’s services. And of course – their own App Store.

Dear friends, Jeff Bezo’s Amazon has just forked Android! Amazon is not the only company forking with Android, Baidu is too. I think that is a big blow to Google’s mobile strategy,

A little background

In the early days of Android, companies like Motorola and Samsung bet their future on Android, in return for getting a ‘free’ OS which would compete with the iPhone’s. In return for the free OS they distributed Google’s services around the globe. Note: You cannot use an Android phone without a Google email account and all the services that come with it.

When the Android OS alliance was launched, Eric Schimdt said

"this will be the first fully-integrated software stack, including an operating system and middleware, being made available under the most liberal open-source license ever given to mobile operators and handset makers"

Although looking back, that statement seems technically correct (most liberal does not necessarily mean liberal, but relatively more/most liberal), handset manufacturers were soon to find out Android is not really that open.

I have always been skeptical of Google’s selfless and open initiatives. Google has this strategy (a very good one I concede) of making things free (read: lowering competitiveness of their opponents) only when they are behind. Here is an idea Larry and Sergey about being really open, can we open source the Google search algorithm? :)

This time around Android, I think this strategy has backfired.

The Android Fork up.

As time progressed, big hardware manufacturers realised that Android is open in a different way. It is only after a new version of Android has launched that you would have a chance to peek in. That might be ok for entities like Cyanogen mod, but not for companies that want to be at the bleeding edge, when you have companies like Apple pacing away.

Of recent, Google Android and some of its partners have been getting challenged quite a bit with patent issues. HTC is fighting Apple in various courts around the world while Samsung cannot sell their 10.1 tablet in Europe.

In the spirit of "protecting Android", Google has had to fork out (pun intended) $12.5 billion to buy the Mobile arm of Motorola, inadvertently competing directly with their partners. The CEO’s of their partner companies were so pleased with this move that they said the same thing when it was announced.

(Side Note: If Android was open why didn’t contributors and beneficiaries pool their patents? Why is it left to Google to foot the entire bill of the ‘Android defense? I guess they are really nice guys)

Now with Amazon and Baidu opening the way, I predict other companies will start forking Android left, right and center. I tip Samsung to be the next.

What this fork up might mean:

For Google: Initially, the ‘Free and Open’ strategy made sense. They could offset the cost of developing the Android OS with the money from ad’s (getting people to use Google services and displaying ad’s there) however, these forks have messed that plan up. Both Baidu and Amazon are stripping the OS from those Google applications that normally come with the Android phone. Now Google may have to pay if they want to have their search and other apps default. In the case of Baidu a search engine, the response will be LOLZ .

For Developers and Users: Presently, It seems the same Android apps run on all the different forks of Android, however, How long will it last? I predict that by a maximum of 3 versions away we would start seeing serious compatibility problems with apps. Which inadvertently means different OS’s

I am guessing this gives Microsoft an edge the down the line, to be the second most reliable OS to develop for after Apple’s. Overall, I think the good that might come out of these forking problems is that the web would be the most reliable platform for the delivery of web application services via HTML5.

So is Google’s Chrome a fall back strategy? The Gmail Chome App is done pretty well and Chrome Remote Desktop gives a glimpse of what the Chome OS can be.

Those smart chaps!

Thanks to June for helping me edit this post.

I am Oo, founder of GBEDU.FM where I hope to make sense of this business of music. I once tried to kill the business card with OnePage.

The iPhone4S, Consumerism And Humanity

Yesterday, Apple released a slightly upgraded version of the iPhone 4 and the verdict has been near universal. WHERE IS THE IPHONE5?!!!

It is not that people are complaining that there is anything wrong with the iPhone 4; in fact the iPhone 3G can basically do the same thing (basic functionality like call, play Angry Birds and take pictures of getting drunk) . People are angry they have not been given a new thing to buy.

I am wondering how we got to this point where consuming has become essential to life.

Here in Nigeria, the lengths people go to get a new Blackberry borders on disgusting. People spend 6 times the minimum monthly wage of the country just to get a new BlackBerry. Reason? Because ‘they said’ it is the latest one.

Although I am really appalled about this type of behavior, I am far from immune.

Over a year ago, I had a fairly decent computer, because I realized it was about time I bought a new one, I convinced myself that it was too old so i could but another one. As karma would have it, the computer packed up in less than 3 months. I jumped back to my old computer which has been serving me well one year on. it is obvious I never needed the new one in the first place.

MORE! MORE!! MORE!!!

*NEW! NEW!! NEW!!!

So why are we humans like this?

*Not necessarily new, let them just say it is new.

I am Oo, founder of GBEDU.FM where I hope to make sense of this business of music. I once tried to kill the business card with OnePage.