Menage atrois: The co-opetitors
PC firms have to accept the inevitable dual & triple boot support

(column by Damodar Menon)

With the official release of the 'Boot Camp' soft ware, Apple, one of the High Priests of computing, has silently given approval to boot Windows on their Mac. This is major change of doctrine, since it was once blasphemous to think of mixing with other operating systems. Boot Camp allows users to run both Windows and OS X on the same computer by restarting and switching the OS.

Taking that further, the same folks who developed the original Windows on Mac bootloader have now got Windows, OS X and Linux to boot on the Apple MacBook Pro. While this method is high risk and should be attempted only by the competent and adventurous sort, it heralds a shift in tech tradition.

The compatibility weakness (that reduced the choice available to consumers) has been circumvented and multi-boot will inevitably become more user friendly. Not to mention that the respective communities loathe for each other makes this release a small miracle, if not more.

Belying fears of Apple's legacy OS X being overrun by Windows, Darren Sng, product marketing manager (Soft ware), Apple, confidently says, "No, we aren't threatened. OS X is (truly) made for the Mac." His sentiment is understandable, as Apple has more to gain through potentially higher MacBook Pro sales. Triple Boot, another multi-OS support, still in the testing phase, claims to be the godsend for companies that necessarily need to use discrete OS for essential soft ware; imagine the savings at an organizational level if the claims are true.

Clearly, computer manufacturers have to accept that dual & triple boot are like peace treaties between warring parties. It's just a matter of time before true virtualisation, which allows users to run separate OS, is a reality. Any soft ware, anytime, on any computer and any OS - the best of all worlds, Nirvana is at hand.

(End of Damodar Menon column)

India'na Jones & the products of doom
...for competitors; MS must consolidate investments for sure leadership

(column by Richa Sharma)

"In India we want to create an initiative of Shakshar, Shiksha and Vikas," says Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft India. For years, much of the IT major's focus has been on the larger strata of the technologically elite enterprises. However, off late, the country has become a testing ground for Microsoft 's customised local solutions.

"With India's overall economy, it is an incredible place to be in," says Jeff Raikes, President, Microsoft Business Division. Microsoft , in a visible change of strategy, unveiled 'Microsoft Office Solutions Showcase' of 18 Office-based applications customised and developed by local independent soft ware vendors targeting the Indian market.

Also, with Oracle providing localized solutions for the Indian tax department, Microsoft too has come out with customized soft ware 'Income Tax Console' that would help in dealing with online filing of tax returns. 'E-gram', a Panchayat console is another initiative for villagers. Another Shiksha project aims to bridge the digital divide and hopes to let teachers train around the Microsoft technology platform. It has even targeted public sector banks with a special Office for Banks application suite.

Microsoft has invested around $1.7 billion, which is more than any other international competitor in the localization space, to develop a unified communications & application development platform. It covers almost all verticals like egovernance, defense, education, banking, publishing and retail. If Microsoft moves now and consolidates past investments, not only would they reap the advantage of being first-movers, but would also gain sustainable competitive advantages in the Indian market.

Microsoft continues its skirmishes with EU's Intellectual Property Rights buddies over alleged abuse of its market leader position. Comparatively, India, as such, is a virgin domain. Its PC penetration is increasing, and the market is booming. For Bill, this is the best scenario to grab the user before the next wave of anti-trust cases from competitors come forth.

(End of Richa Sharma column)

Look Mom, no wires! The digital future...
Emerging economies such as India will welcome new wireless solutions

(column by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Vice President, Forrester Research Inc.)

The new emerging buzzword in the communication industry is WiMAX (also known as IEEE 802.16). Promoted by Intel, it promises better and faster communications at a much, much cheaper price. Is this the turn of a new era in networking where remote locations will not be remote anymore, and the world will effectively be a global village?

There are much discussions about the real performance of the technology, its real cost and its chances to be adopted worldwide. At the end of the day, we need to consider this innovation as an industrial solution and judge its value for the consumer, industrial or individual, and not lose ourselves in obscure technology battles.

Market development and success, in industrial products, comes from the supply side: innovators present a solution to a latent or a fully developed problem, and the recognised advantages presented by the solution spurs the demand side. A very simple mechanism that has been confirmed by many studies; however, to be successfully adopted in a given market, a solution has to respect certain criteria that I have summarised in a paper published by Forrester Research: 1) the solution has to present a distinct technical advantage over what exists, 2) the solution must present an economical advantage over what exists, 3) the solution must overwhelm the vested interest present in the market, and 4) the solution's value must be perceived quickly by the user.

Let's look at what WiMAX and Intel's "Rosedale," the new WiMAX chip, has to offer. The technology, when fully developed, proposes speeds of 40Mbps, over a longer distance than Wi-Fi, and supports a wide range of protocols like IP, Ethernet and ATM. More, it proposes at first solutions for office based workstations and later for nomadic or mobile usage within a city. In terms of technical advantages, results in the field show that the speed may not be fully available yet, but the capability is. Gigabit Ethernet is an example of how a technology can evolve when needed, and even if the full 40 Mbps are not readily available, we can be confident that it will be in the near future. That is a huge technical advantage.

In terms of economical advantage, the reach of a WiMAX tower means that investments are lower than those needed for 3G or other technologies available today. WiMAX, for example, can cover a radius of 30 miles compared to a radius of 2 miles for 3G, which means fewer towers to cover a metropolitan area, and of course a far lower cost than a wired Metro Ethernet solution.

So the service provided is at least equivalent or better for a far lower investment. But vested interests are lurking in the background: it is clear that North America, and especially Europe, have invested heavily in 3G and other technologies such as DSL and Broadband. This is going to slow down the development of WiMAX there. On the other hand, in emerging economies such as India or South America, where service providers do not have to protect a legacy of vested interests, the new solution will be welcome as a means to develop a city and country wide communication infrastructure and join the global village faster.

Certification, available frequencies, all problems that slow down adoption in some geographies may not be a problem in others. Compared to the WiMAX solution, traditional communication infrastructure requires a heavy investment and a long delay in deployment. Cellular communication has provided a clear and effective example of how fast a wireless technology can be deployed in the absence of a wired infrastructure.

Even in North America or Europe, a number of areas cannot be reached today with traditional means, and the cost of traditional broadband or DSL may be too much for a number of potential clients. In fact, North America now trails behind Europe in terms of consumer fast Internet access, with only 25% of users equipped with DSL or Broadband. If the next generation of desktops and laptops comes directly equipped with Rosedale chips that instantly connects to the nearest WiMAX tower and offers a quick subscription scheme to the user, how would this compare to having to wait for a DSL or Broadband connection, or trying to find a "hot-spot" where price gouging is the rule?

Because of the lighter investments required, and the lower prices at consumer level, a wireless technology that can be deployed at the metropolitan level with an upload and download speed equal or better than what current technologies provides is a clear winner in any geography, and a sure winner where no existing infrastructure (and the vested interests of service providers) is in the way. This solution has the potential to bridge the gap between developed and emerging economies in terms of digital communications. Our conclusion is that all the necessary ingredients for success and market adoption are present.

What it now takes is a number of entrepreneurs able to carry this to market. Local service providers able to build and manage the infrastructure need to ally with public or private financing to make this a reality, and it will be a very profitable reality: the consequences of better communications on education and economies are enormous, and would amplify the worldwide economical transfers, that we already see today in IT and manufacturing, by providing affordable worldwide reach to small and medium enterprises.

In most economies, the private financing of infrastructure equipment has proved a failure: involving the necessity for short term profits with public services amortised over several decades has proved not to be a wise model, and on paper looks definitely like an oxymoron. In this particular case, the mix of public and private investment prospects may look different. The technology has all the necessary elements for a fast market adoption, while its infrastructure requires a relatively light investment: recouping costs and reaching profitability may not require decades, but simply years.

The real decision may well be a political one: through artificially lower prices enabled by a longer amortisation period, public funding may accelerate adoption and provide an economical boost to designated geographies. This decision, however, requires a careful survey of economical prospects: communication is an enabler, not a source of development per se...

(End of Jean-Pierre Garbani, Vice President, Forrester Research Inc. column)