Monthly Archives: April 2011

Apple’s Amazing Quarter

Posted by Thelonious Mac on

At this point it’s becoming something of a shopworn phrase but last week Apple announced yet another amazing, record breaking quarter. While other computer and electronics companies can no longer seem to find the on button, Apple charges forward. Apple does this, notwithstanding an economy that remains horribly anemic, anemic in no small part, due to the sheer feckless and dawdling policies of those we hired to act as caretakers of our nation.  The Administration is blaming snow.

Also, those of you who insist Apple only succeeds because of Steve Jobs, keep in mind, this is without the constant presence of Steve. The truth should be clear to you by now. Apple, Inc. is a well run organization.

I finally sat down and took a look at the numbers this morning, and wow. I expected another great quarter. What I didn’t expect is just how great.

• Sales: $24.67 billion, up 82.8% year over year – 82.8% over the same quarter last year, and 59% of those sales are international.

• Profits: $5.99 billion, up 95% – And they have $66 billion dollars in the bank. They could buy Netflix with what amounts to couch change for them if they so desired. My guess though is that they are more likely outdo Netflix. Keep watching. Something is about to happen with that shiny new spiffy North Carolina data center, and not just the additional data center Apple is building right next door!

• EPS: $6.40, up 92%

• iPhone: 18.65 million units, up 113% - While other companies keep hanging disjoint bells and whistles on Android phones, the iPhone remains the juggernaut that is defining the industry. Android, as many predicted (as if this made it desirable) is becoming the Windows of the mobile device industry. The SF Chronicle and Bloomberg report “Google’s Android mobile-phone platform faces soaring software attacks and has little control over the applications, according to security firm Kaspersky Lab.” So much for the “Android is open and Apple is closed” argument. The article goes on to quote the CTO of Kaspersky; “…Applications loaded with malicious software are infiltrating the Google operating system at a faster rate than hackers did with personal computers at the same stage in development…” Kaspersky “…identified 70 different types of malware in March, up from two categories in September…”  Rut roh.You know how you constantly hear that Android is overtaking iOS (Apple’s mobile OS)? Well comScore, Inc. reported on Tuesday, April 19  that iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches have a “combined reach of 37.9 million among all mobile devices, outreaching the Android platform by 59%.” One of the interesting things about these numbers is that while iOS devices are 59% more prevalent, the hackers and malicious software freaks are going after Android. This contradicts the theory that Macs remain pretty much malware free due to lower numbers. Evil goes where it has the easiest time, period. Even Microsoft referred to Android as ” insecure and complex.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Somehow while holding a straight face, a Microsoft representative stated that “Windows Phone will eventually succeed in the business market because there is too much malware attacking the Android OS…”

• iPhone sales up 155% in the U.S., thanks in part to Verizon, and up 250% in greater China – Is there any doubt why developers continue to flock to iOS as opposed to the fragmented Android mess? It’s because, as Willie Sutton would say, “That’s where the money is.” The number of fart applications on Android does continue to grow though.

• iPad: 4.69 million units, compared with 7.33 million in Q1. – A bit of bad news but it was to be expected. Everyone knew the iPad 2 was coming and Apple just couldn’t make enough iPad 2s‘ to satisfy the “Mother of all Backlogs.”

• Mac: 3.76 million units, up 28%. Asia-Pacific Mac sales up 76%. – The Mac is stronger than ever. New iMacs are on the way, and rumors of a design change in MacBook Pros are beginning to circulate.

• iPod: 9.02 million units, down 17%. More than 50% iPod touch – Stands to reason. iPods are built into iPads and iPhones. Still iPods being sold are iOS devices.

• iTunes store: Sales of $1.4 billion – Get ready for iCloud!?

• Apple stores: 71.1 million visitors, up 50% – There you have it. Why go to trade shows? Every day is a trade show for Apple.

• Store sales: $3.19 billion, up 90%

• Cash and marketable securities: $65.8 billion, up from 59.7 in Q1.

Meanwhile, what’s happening with the rest of the computer industry? Not much except declining sales. HP is down, Dell is down, Acer is down, Lenovo is down, only Apple and Toshiba are up. Nokia just laid off 7000 people.  It would seem that focus, direction, and innovation are a bit more than cranking out prototype copies of Apple products. Just ask Google.

Further Reading:

TechCrunch

Smartphone Privacy Hysteria

Posted by Thelonious Mac on
The hysteria machine is cranking out FUD on full again this week. Al Franken is jumping up and down trying to show how little he knows about computers, smartphones, and privacy.
In regard to the iPhone storing location data,  ”Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, said it raises ‘serious privacy concerns,’ especially for children using the devices, because “anyone who gains access to this single file could likely determine the location of a user’s home, the businesses he frequents, the doctors he visits, the schools his children attend and the trips he has taken — over the past months or even a year…” Wrong, wrong, wrong as usual Al.

Below is an article that appears on the New York Times website at: http://nyti.ms/htzA4h
It does a reasonable job of explaining how location data is captured on smartphones and why such data is important, it does not make it clear though that the data being captured is highly generalized and in addition, when this general data is sent to Apple it is used to refine Apple’s location database not build a user movement profile. In fact the data is sent anonymously. My comments are in italics.

Apple and Google Use Phone Data to Map the World

By MIGUEL HELFT Published: April 25, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO — You may not know it, but if you carry a smartphone in your pocket, you are probably doing unpaid work for Apple or Google — and helping them eventually aim more advertising directly at you.

( I would argue that you are not doing unpaid work for Apple and Google. That’s a stretch in and of itself. You are helping to refine the accuracy of a constantly growing global map. This map will in turn be used not only to target location based advertising at you someday, but is currently being used for all sorts of location based services including pointing you to the nearest hospital if need be. )

As those two companies battle for dominance in mobile computing, they have increasingly been using their customers’ phones as sensors to collect data about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi hot spots.

( True, however they are not collecting data specifically about their customers. They know there is a cell tower at the corner of “1st and Main”. They don’t know that Al is at the corner of 1st and Main. If Al asks his cell phone where the nearest Pizza Hut is, Apple and Google and Skyhook and everyone else has that data, and the information (the nearest Pizza Hut to that cell tower) is sent back to Al. Nothing from or about Al is sent back to Apple.)

Google and Apple use this data to improve the accuracy of everything on the phone that uses location. That includes maps and navigation services, but also advertising aimed at people in a particular spot — a potentially huge business that is just getting off the ground. In fact, the information has become so valuable that the companies have been willing to push the envelope on privacy to collect it.

( Privacy indeed. I give up more privacy when I purchase T-shirts online than when I use location based services on my phone. When I make an online purchase I give up my credit card data, I surrender my name and address, and all of that is stored with the bank. Apple, Google, et. al. store nothing about me. )

“Google envisions a world where even a small business can promote products to consumers nearby on a mobile device,” said Alistair Goodman, chief executive of Placecast, a location-based advertising company here. “That is a massive market.”

( That’s one tiny part of Google’s vision. I think Google’s vision ends with the phrase, “Soylent Green is People!” but I can’t be sure. )

The companies are using the cell tower and hot spot data to build maps of the world, maps that help smartphones quickly pinpoint their locations. Using the signals as navigational beacons is particularly useful in places where GPS satellite signals are weak, like urban areas or anywhere indoors.

( This is true, but it should be made clear that I could hand you my file right now and you would not be able to determine my location. You could get the general area I’m in but that’s it. Even the cell towers aren’t necessarily towers that I have pinged. If I give you my file, you’ve got an approximation of areas I’ve been to, but not the names and/or addresses of locations. )

Shifting allegiances and legal battles in the world of location services suggest competition in this market is heating up.

Apple initially relied on technology from Skyhook Wireless, a company that was a pioneer in the technique of using Wi-Fi hot spots for location. But last year it began collecting its own data as well. And late last year, Skyhook sued Google, charging that Google had copied its technology and persuaded Motorola to break contracts with Skyhook and use Google’s competing service.

Google and Apple have said that they collect the information anonymously and use it to keep their databases of Wi-Fi hot spots up to date, not to track individuals. But because a person’s location is delicate information, the practices have raised privacy fears.

( No. The practices have not raised privacy fears. Misrepresentation in the media, such as headlines that say “Apple is tracking you!” are what is raising privacy fears. )

The use of this data by the companies has been under scrutiny since last week, when two technology researchers reported that a file stored on many iPhones and iPads keeps track of all the locations visited by a user. The file is unencrypted and is copied to people’s personal computers when they sync their devices.

( And this is one big out and out lie. The data does not keep track of specific locations, only generalizations. There are countless buildings, businesses, residences, etc. near where I am right now. Using the data from my phone it is impossible to determine where I actually am. If I search for nearby grocery delivery, using cell tower, wifi hotspot, and GPS data to locate my phone more accurately, Apple will send back known grocery delivery places, however no information is stored with Apple. Nor is the fact that I looked for grocery delivery. Also, this is not new information. Some researchers at O’Reilly are acting like it’s new information, but it’s not. Please see Alex Levinson’s Blog at: http://bit.ly/e21NVr)

[ Recommended Reading: iOS Forensic Analysis - http://amzn.to/gbcmu5 ]

The report prompted lawmakers in the United States to ask Apple for explanations. Several European governments said they would open investigations into Apple’s practices. On Monday, two customers sued Apple accusing it of privacy invasion and computer fraud. They contend the company is secretly recording and storing the location and movement of iPhone and iPad users.

( Of course they did. The moment I read the first headline I knew the class action gold diggers would pounce. )

Late last week, Google said it was collecting information about nearby networks from Android users, though it said that it was not tracking individuals and that it allowed users to decline to participate.

( Soylent Green is People! – I’d trust Apple long before trusting Google. - http://bit.ly/fckGle)

Lisa Madigan, the attorney general of Illinois, wrote to Google and Apple on Monday asking them to explain their location data collection practices.

Apple has declined to comment on the matter.

( In a world where economic stability seems to be diminishing all around us, where freaking Phd’s can’t find jobs, where [Insert social calamity here], there sure do seem to be lots of politicians and legislators with nothing better to do than chase around Apple and Google. I really wish they cared about Net Neutrality this much. – To be fair, Franken does. )

On Monday, the Web site MacRumors published an e-mail said to be from Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and chief executive, in which he replied to a person who had said he planned to switch to a Google Android phone because Google did not track him. The reply said: “Oh yes they do. We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false.”

( I picture Apple PR people running around screaming ‘OMG! He’s got that iPad again! Quick! Turn off his email!’  I agree with Steve. Apple is one thing. Google is another. )

Apple declined to confirm the authenticity of the e-mail.

Some security specialists said they believed Apple was not tracking people, but rather collecting data to update its location databases, since Wi-Fi networks can quickly come and go. A letter sent from Apple in July to two members of Congress, Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, appears to confirm this and provides the most detailed explanation of the technology.

( And why is this not the end of the story? )

In the letter, Apple said it collects the location data anonymously and only when consumers agree to use its location-based services like maps, or any apps that ask for a user’s location, and for its advertising system, iAds. The company said it began relying on its own databases for location information in 2010. Explaining its need to collect data from its customers’ phones, Apple wrote, “These databases must be updated continuously.”

Security researchers said that they believed that the file with location data stored on iPhones and iPads was meant as a “cache” that would help the device pinpoint its whereabouts faster, and that it could help feed Apple’s giant database of network locations. But they said Apple should have been more diligent about encrypting the file and deleting old data.

( Encryption. Oh please. Here. Take my file. Have a field day. Knock yourself out. )

“I don’t know why they would want to keep all that data on the device,” said Mark Seiden, an information security consultant in Silicon Valley.

( Uh, maybe for SPEED Mr. Security Consultant?  Hmm… if I were a security consultant I would have taken the opportunity to make it clear to the reporter that your cell phone has had the FCC mandated ability to track you since 2001. )

Skyhook began collecting data about Wi-Fi hot spots by sending a fleet of more than 500 cars to drive around the streets of every major city in the United States, Europe and many Asian countries.

“We drove the world,” said Ted Morgan, Skyhook’s chief executive. The company updates the database by sending its cars to remap certain areas and by using phones as sensors when a user requests location data.

Google, which initially collected data on Wi-Fi hot spots with the same fleet of cars that was taking photos for its StreetView service, said it stopped doing so last year after it was found to have collected e-mails and other data streamed through those hot spots. It now collects much of that data and traffic information, through customers’ phones.

Mobile advertising could be a $2.5 billion market by 2015, according to Frost & Sullivan, and ads tied to a location are much more lucrative than other ads. But Mr. Morgan said the location data could be valuable in areas beyond the Internet and mobile phones.

For example, a retailer that has eight outlets in a city could use data about walking patterns to determine where to open its next outlet.

“You are basically getting insight into human behavior that we’ve never had before,” Mr. Morgan said.

Jenna Wortham contributed reporting from New York.

iPad: The Job Killer

Posted by Thelonious Mac on

Poor Jessie Jackson, Jr.

He didn’t know what he was saying. He probably had no idea of the backlash.  One thing is for sure, he’s now on the list of people who’ve said the most idiotic things possible about the Internet and technology in general. He’s right up there with Al Gore who “took initiative in creating the Internet.” His statement is as infamous as Senator Ted Stevens’s “The Internet is not a big truck… it’s a series of tubes,” and Bon Jovi’s “Steve Jobs killed the music industry.” To that last one I say, “All hail Steve the giant killer!” Unfortunately the music industry is anything but dead.

Anyway, last Friday, Jessie Jackson, Jr., was making a presentation to Congress. It was a typical congressional presentation, one that no one would ever hear, see or think about. He was yammering on and pointing to his silly looking giant cardboard visual aids, when suddenly he went off an a tirade explaining how iPads are costing thousands of jobs.

I know no one was paying attention because I wasn’t paying attention. I was busy looking at LOLCATS and being mystified at the fact that Windows 7 still has config.sys, autoexec.bat, and registry files, and the fact that there really, truly are a lot more raisins in Kellog’s Raisin Bran than other brands. Then suddenly I heard the word “iPad” come from the general direction of the TV, and I glanced up over the top of my glasses. (Yeah yeah, CSPAN entertains me.)

Jessie Jackson, Jr., it seems, had an epiphany. He discovered the “post-Windows-era.” Listening to him, I could almost see him sitting at home one morning, oatmeal dribbling down his chin, blank stare on his face, when it occurs to him, “Gee, if all my publications come electronically, I won’t need books and magazines and stuff, and all those people will be out of work. OMG! The iPad is killing American jobs!”

To be fair he is sort of correct. Electronic publishing is poised to do away with books and magazines, just as smartphones are killing digital cameras, and iPads are having an adverse effect low cost computers. What he was attempting to do (I think) was explain how technology and globalization are crucifying American jobs. What he did was sound foolish.

“… the iPad is produced in China! It’s not produced here in the United States. So the Chinese get to take advantage of our first amendment value, that is to provide freedom of speech through the iPad to the American people but there is no protection for jobs here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to work…”

What?

Clearly or not so clearly actually, Jackson has mastered his father’s ability to make even the simplest of concepts utterly confusing, but he apparently didn’t attend the same Dr. Seuss Speech Academy. Jessie Jackson, Sr. might have said, “The uh, iPad uh, can be had from here to uh, Baghdad, but we are not glad, we are in fact very sad, because there are no jobs to add, and that is bad, not rad, I am your dad, Jessie, you see.”

While Jackson, Jr. might have stumbled onto how new technologies have dramatic effects on the world, (which is a good thing to comprehend), his solution to the hollowing out of the job market is as naive as ever. He suggests that instead of getting America’s deficits and debt under control that Congress should be focused on creating jobs. This makes it clear that he doesn’t see the correlation is between massive government spending and a diminishing job market. The government can tax us, which sucks money out of the economy and eliminates jobs, or the government can print money, which harms future economies.

He states that 13 million unemployed Americans are counting on this congress to do something. Not really. We are not counting on Congress doing anything at all except getting spending under control, and bringing our debt under control, and of course, making sure a level playing field is kept on the Internet via Net Neutrality.

Change is constant and inevitable.  Bookstores may become a thing of the past, like record stores, but publishing, just as with music selling, goes on. Publishers are shifting to an electronic model. New jobs are coming into existence where previously there were none. Ironically, I buy many more books than I used to, and I do it whenever I want. If the urge to go book shopping strikes me at 2:00AM, I can go to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Apple’s Book Store, countless smaller electronic publishers, and even free publishers. I can hit all these bookstores 24 x 7 and no fossil fuels are burned and no trees are cut down.

The iPad is a major catalyst of change. This is good change that we must embrace, understand, and nurture, not falsely blame for social ills.

More thoughts on the Post-Windows-Era…

Posted by Thelonious Mac on

Duh, uh, is this where the mouse goes?

Essentially the post-Windows-era is being brought about by the introduction of inexpensive, highly portable, intelligent devices like the iPad and the iPhone. The success of these devices has literally changed the direction of both the cell phone and computer industries. It’s only been a few years since the introduction of the iPhone and now the term “smartphone” is part of the general vernacular and just about every “smartphone” on the market is a copy of the essential ideas in the iPhone. The iPad is barely a year old and it’s changed the course of the entire computer industry. Every computer company out there is now making an iPad copy. Executives from major computer vendors are speaking as if building these devices was their idea all along, but we know that isn’t true.

One interesting aspect is that the two largely separate industries, cell phones and computers have been brought crashing together as smartphones and tablets become the preferred general purpose computing platforms. Mobile phones are very adept at handling a large percentage of the mundane tasks that used to require a full blown computer such as reading and responding to email, utilizing the web, and other forms of media consumption. In a pinch smartphones can serve as document and content creation devices as well, but larger tablets are much more convenient.

Here is a scenario that is occurring for me right now. I received a call from a client requesting that i convert OUTLOOK.PST files to something that was open and could be read by other email programs. Not a problem but I’m sitting in traffic court.

Luckily I have my iPad. Using the iPad I was able to control my laptop on my desk back at home. I had it download the .PST files and run them through a conversion to create MBOX files. Then transmit those files back to the client. Effectively my laptop became my temporary cloud service. I didn’t do the processing on the iPad, but I controlled everything including all communication from the iPad. I then connected to Freshbooks.com and updated my invoice for the client, which when I send it later today, will be link to a browser viewable invoice as well as a PDF if they want a copy.

All of this and there were no Windows computers involved.

The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) states that 17 million tablets were sold in 2010. Apple sold 15 million iPads so the lion’s share of that number clearly went to iPads. They are projecting that 30 million units will be sold in 2011. Gartner thinks that tablet sales will increase to 54.8 million units in 2011. Apple is expected to dominate the market for the foreseeable future at 75% of tablet sales going to iPads. With the release of the iPad 2, Apple is off to a clear head start as there are still no real competitors for the iPad. Gartner also expects tablet sales to surpass 208 million units in 2014. The iPad/iPhone/iOS ecosystem will still be the one to beat in 2014 the way things are looking. Apple clearly has some fantastic plans in the works for bridging the worlds of Mac OS X and iOS.

An important number to look at in all the projections is that it is expected that more than 25% of all tablet purchases will be made by enterprises in 2011. Most of these will likely be iPads which don’t run Windows. Most of the other tablets will likely run Android and/or WebOS (if HP ever gets it out the door).

In other words, Welcome to the Post-Windows-Era. Employees are gravitating toward these mobile devices, and developing intuition about what the cloud can do for them. I.e. increase their mobility as well as productivity. In the Post-Windows-Era, your files are where you are. Your servers are as ubiquitous as Internet connectivity. Your productivity is tied directly to open standards, not Windows compatibility.

Even Microsoft is busy building patches, kludges, and hanging sacks off the side of Windows so they can call it a tablet OS, but all of these efforts indicate they really don’t get one of the chief ideas behind tablet computing and that’s the elimination of complexity.

Slowly but surely we are drifting away from Windows into the cloud with smart devices and competitive operating systems. Our future is a vastly more sturdy, secure, and adaptable infrastructure. Instead of easily attacked and hobbled homogeneous networks, diversity will add strength to the digital ecosystem as it does the biological one.

Next, what happens to the IT Department in the Post-Windows-Era?

Welcome To The Post-Windows-Era

Posted by Thelonious Mac on

“Technology does not drive change. Technology enables change. It is our collective cultural response to the options and opportunities presented by technology that drives change.”

- Paul Saffo

To simply state that change in IT is inevitable is a pedestrian understatement. Information technology is changing more rapidly than ever before. It seems that hardware and software, and practical application techniques undergo seismic changes every year, bringing a new wave of applications as well as cultural and anthropological implications that were not conceivable a year before.

Our old model of enterprise and small business computing which has workstations married to desks, servers in the back room, and mass storage attached locally is dead. If this model is the basis of your ongoing information technology architecture, fire your IT person because you are beating an anachronistic horse, particularly if that horse is named Microsoft Windows.

This old model is quickly succumbing to the new paradigm of intelligent, cheap, portable devices in the hands of agile creative workers, with applications and storage provided by standards based services from the cloud. It is time to get over the nephophobia and realize that the bulk of your data services will be moving away from your physical location and that the primary activity of your IT department will be the deployment and management of mobile devices. Your infrastructure will be “SaaS,” meaning both Storage as a Service and Software as a Service.

If you are tasked with watching changes in the IT landscape and you don’t live under the proverbial rock, then you should be aware that cataclysmic change has been brought about by two “Extinction Level Events.”

The first ELE was the introduction of the iPhone which all but caused the extinction of the mobile phone as we knew it. The iPhone is a handheld computer that happens to have a phone attached. The iPhone forever changed the way mobile phones look and behave. The iPhone lifted our expectations of handheld mobile devices far beyond where they were just a day before the iPhone was introduced.

The second ELE was of course the advent of the iPad. The iPad in just 11 months sold over 15 million units and people became accustomed to the idea that they no longer needed the big desktop or heavy laptop to get work done. Initially written off by those who continue to try and milk the dead cow (Windows), the iPad has been a phenomenal success and you will be hard pressed to find a major institution that is not experimenting with new ways to incorporate the iPad.

And of course the halo effect is bringing the Macintosh itself in significant numbers to corporate America. People are realizing the true advantage of the Macintosh is Mac OS X. Mac OS X is quite possibly the most sophisticated general purpose operating system currently available. It is an industrial strength operating system that excels in speed, usability, and security. It is the foundation technology of a truly remarkable trinity; iPhone, iPad, and Mac OS X. iOS, the operating system that powers iPhone, iPad, and iPod for that matter, is a Mac OS X derivative, proving that Mac OS X is not only versatile, but highly scalable.

If the effect of iPhone and iPad are still not apparent to you, its understandable. After the great meteor hit, the surviving dinosaurs weren’t initially impressed by the little mammals running around either. If that analogy doesn’t make it clear how significant the changes are, let me put it to you this way. Welcome to the Post-Windows Era.

The idea that we are at the end of the Windows hegemony is not an easy one for many people to grasp. This does not mean that Windows will disappear over night. Windows has been so massively successful that it will linger for the foreseeable future. It is still on the vast majority of computers in the world. Nonetheless, we are at the end of the Cretaceous period as far as Windows is concerned. IT is undergoing its own climate change and the biggest dinosaurs are bellowing from their respective tar pits.

HP Executive Stephen DeWitt droned on recently about Apple not providing a more inclusive channel system for VARs etc. In other words, this gentleman is saying Apple fails because they don’t create enough middlemen to add cost and complexity to acquiring products.

Andy Lark, DELL’s Global Head of Marketing for Large Enterprises and Public Organizations (that all has to fit on his business card I guess), made it clear that he is completely in the dark with regard to the global success of the iPad. This visionary stated that Android is outpacing it. Seriously? There are over 65,000 applications built specifically for the iPad, not to mention that most of the 350,000 titles on Apple’s app store will function on iPad, while there are only 17 apps for Android/Honeycomb tablets. Lark even referred to the iPad as “complex.” To further underscore his dinosaur status, Lark literally said that an iPad with a keyboard, mouse and case is $1500 or $1600. Keyboard? Mouse? $1500? With this vise-like grasp of reality and nimble analysis, is it any wonder Dell has floundered and been outpaced by Apple for years? Lark considers Dell’s stake in Microsoft Windows a strength. The article is worth a read for a good chuckle. Dell has a bright future as an also-ran.

Microsoft’s Global Chief of Research and Strategy, Craig Mundie, recently stated that he did not know whether the new category of tablet computers, in particular the iPad, was here to stay. This he said while (as the author of the article put it) “…virtually the entire consumer electronics industry throws its weight behind tablet computers…” The reason that Microsoft stock has been stale forever is clear. Microsoft has never innovated. They got lucky once when Gates leased DOS to IBM. DOS was a clone they bought. Windows was a copy of the original Macintosh. The success of Windows should count as the world’s largest industrial accident. Even now, reading the comments of Mundie, it’s clear that there is a kind of delusional groupthink at Redmond these days. They don’t know they’re beaten. They don’t know they’re the dinosaurs. They’re still practicing their old business model of copy and claim innovation.

Obviously some will cling tenaciously to the status quo but this won’t change the fact that this is the post-Windows era.

Going forward, Windows will no longer be the foundation upon which enterprise solutions are built. It will no longer be important for businesses to be compatible with Microsoft Windows. Due to cloud based services, organizations and individuals will have choices. In fact, it will become more important for Windows itself to maintain compatibility with the standards of the world. Microsoft won’t be able to simply subvert standards via its embrace and corrupt methodology. You can’t embrace a cloud.

As the older IT people die out, or get replaced due to lack of vision and imagination, IT departments will stop marching in lockstep to build Redmond specified, blessed, and proprietary solutions. The cloud is OS agnostic.

Instead of Windows compatibility, issues like app availability and user experience will become important. If your company is using Salesforce.com for CRM, browser compatibility is important. App availability is important. Windows is utterly irrelevant. Even when organizations find it necessary to build their own solutions, they will build cloud based services hosted by cloud hosting companies with mobile devices as the targeted delivery platform.

Did the iPad bring all of this about? No. Not exactly. The iPad is however, the first truly successful and visible harbinger of these changes. We have been inching toward the “cloud” for many years now, and the iPhone as well as the iPad are the most exciting “cloud clients” to come about. See “Padding the Cloud.” The iPad seems built from the ground up to take advantage of cloud computing.

Enterprise IT architecture won’t be the only area of change brought about by the cloud and clients like the iPad. In the post-Windows-era, expect to see the ultimate collapse of the “workplace.” The concept of “going to work” is dissipating into the cloud. Already it makes little sense for employees to get up and drive an average of 45 minutes to an office, just to send the same email messages they could have sent from home. Internet ubiquity is growing. In the post-Windows-era, the workplace will become anywhere there is good wireless broadband. With faster connections and cloud services, expect the workplace to become largely virtual. Small to medium sized organizations will be completely virtual. Very large enterprises will have large numbers of virtual employees operating in the cloud.

The post-Windows-era promises to be an exciting time as we break free from the stale Windows stranglehold on businesses. There are new dangers though that make the Windows monopoly look pale in comparison. Most notably there is the danger of tier one ISPs essentially taking ownership of the Internet. While we are poised to take advantage of a new connected world in the post-Windows-era, tier one ISPs are exploring ways to cap, meter, throttle, and artificially limit bandwidth. We must work together to insure that the Internet remains neutral. Net Neutrality is one of the most important aspects of the post-Windows-era. Let your congressional representatives, i.e. YOUR employees know that if they hand the Internet over to a few corporations, they will be out of work.

The iPad and iPhone are not just best of breed devices, they define the breed. In the post-Windows-era we are making the Net smarter than ever as the devices we deploy have more and more sensory capability. iPads and iPhones and iPods, etc. can see and hear and determine where they are in the world. Consider for a moment what all that sensory data turns the Internet into. I don’t believe we have the vocabulary to express it yet.

On the one hand we have these new devices that can see, hear, locate themselves on a map, respond to touch and movement, provide access to cloud services, and on the other we have organizations looking for ways to claim ownership of the cloud. This cannot be allowed to happen. Microsoft may not be able to seize the cloud, but Time Warner and AT&T can.

In the post-Windows-era, information wants to flow freely. Without Net Neutrality the tier one ISPs will be free to charge for every bit that flows across their wires. If that happens we might as well forget it, stay chained to our desks, and keep installing Windows security patches.