The Bloor Perspective: PDAs, ASPs and the end of magnetic disks

The next wave of computing trends is throwing some interesting ingredients into the already heady mix of technology. Palm Computing's new Palm VII PDA is claimed to be the first of the new generation of palm-tops to give true Internet-anywhere capabilities - but it's not really a complete solution, and it's certainly not available everywhere.

Basically, the Palm VII takes the well-known Palm Pilot format and adds in a wireless connectivity feature that provides an all-in-one connection to the Internet. But the user does not have freedom to choose an ISP - instead they have to use the Palm.Net ISP, which provides a clipping service that serves Web content from certain Web sites and makes it available in a Palm-compatible style.

There is also an email interface that supports sending and receiving messages. But the major drawback is that Palm.Net is only available in certain locations in the USA and the Palm VII does not double as a mobile phone, so a separate device still has to be carried.

Psion, however, has taken a different approach with a built-in Web browser that gives access to any conventional Web site without the need for a clipping service. But again it fails to provide a complete solution since it has no built-in wireless connectivity - although it does now support infrared communications at up to 56K with a suitable GSM phone.

This is all getting very close to being truly useful. It's just a shame that nobody has managed to combine all of the required bits into one affordable device. And the question is just how long will it take for this to materialise? Our expectation is that the market will continue to evolve quickly and provide a neater solution within the next year to 18 months. Potential users will have to decide for themselves when to buy, as the current solutions look set to become obsolete fairly rapidly. However, from a business perspective the best time to buy is when the need becomes greater than the cost - even if better technology is close.

Why Ellison's got it wrong over ASPs

Larry Ellison has a history of being early to recognise - and indeed set - trends. But this time he appears to have got it wrong. Certainly his assumptions about the importance of ASPs are right. But Ellison's view of the ASP industry confuses the provision of ASP services with the provision of the technology that will provide the infrastructure. These are two very different business models, one service-based and the other technology-based. There is, of course, no reason why a large organisation like Oracle should not provide both types of operation - like Intel, who announced that it would not confine itself to hosting Intel hardware. But Ellison appeared to disagree with this principle when he reportedly said that Oracle will not license other ASPs to run Oracle applications for their users. This is rather like Intel refusing to allow their chips to be used by other ASPs.
The problem with this view is that customers need their ASP to provide an end-to-end service. This means that any ASP must be prepared to host software from a variety of third party vendors. Oracle's Business OnLine (BOL) ASP service is no different in this respect, and Oracle will acknowledge that it will host non-Oracle software when required.
Ellison also said, "Every software company will have to become an ASP."
This is unlikely, since most IT innovations that make it to mainstream originate from small start-up organisations - often one person with a brilliant idea. It is nonsense to assume that these technology-biased individuals will have to strap themselves to a service culture that is contrary to the needs of innovation.
It better serves the industry to have these organisations creating technology that can be deployed wherever it is necessary - either directly by end user organisations or on their behalf by a variety of ASPs. Diversity is essential to evolution.
But Ellison appears to be fairly set in his view of this industry. He is reported to have said, "Unless I am fired, we will never sell Oracle apps to other ASPs." A statement that may come back to haunt him.

Say goodbye to the magnetic disk

IBM has just announced the latest fruits of its research by squeezing 35 billion bits onto a single disk, thanks to a new coating technology.
Plainly, it will be some time before we see this sort of capacity fitted as standard into entry-level PCs. But in all probability the computers that will ship in six or seven years time won't feature magnetic disks at all, but will instead rely on solid state memory anyway.
Some months ago, Hitachi announced that it had made a breakthrough in solid state storage technology through a research project at Cambridge University. The result of this technology - called PLEDMTM (Phase-state Low Electron hole - number Drive Memory) uses a different chip architecture that Hitachi believes will lead to storage chips becoming commercially available in the five year timeframe with a Terabit-level capacity.
Not only is the storage density incredible by today's standards, but the chip architecture is said to provide non-volatile storage with memory contents surviving for a number of years following a power failure.
It is certainly to be expected that these chips will command a premium price when they first become available. But in all likelihood other initiatives will produce competitive products, and the price will enter a downward spiral shortly after. At some point the solid state technology will become more cost-effective than the magnetic disk drive, and the computing world as we know it will change.

* Further analysis is available at http://www.it-director.com