How is Wiener like the iCloud? ( or how people get technology wrong)

June 8 2011, 7:05 PM  by Bernie Michalik
The obvious answer is they are alike in that they involve new technology.
But I am not interested in the new technology. Rather I am interested in
how people see the technology. What they see is a revolution, something
that puts an end to everything before, something that rewrites all of the
rules, and something that puts us on terra incognita. I understand how
people see that, but I think they are wrong.

People are wrong about this for two reasons. One, in order to be
successful, new technology makes an appeal to all but the people who jump
on anything new. That appeal is: this new technology will improve your life
without overturning your life. It more or less gives you a lot of benefit
for little cost and leaves you on firm footing. The more conservative you
are, the more you want that. After the early adopters, you have the next
big wave of people who embrace the new tech while many others do not. That
next wave of people often use the new tech in conventional ways, until it
becomes commonplace. At that point, the conservatives, seeing the new tech
is commonplace, start to adopt the technology. While they are doing that,
the earlier adopters are coming up with new ways to use the technology.
During this whole process, there is an upward shift occurring. To
conservative people, this can all seem dramatic, but to a large portion of
the population it isn't. The other thing to note here is that during this
shift, anything that uses the new technology is seen as new, even when it
isn't. If congressman Wiener had written torrid love letters or faxed
revealing photographs of himself to young women, he still would have been
in trouble once this story broke. However, since his story involved new
technology, there is a lot of debate on whether or not this is a new thing.
The answer is: it depends on your frame of reference. It is very relative.
My assertion is some aspects of this are new, but overall it is not.


Two, new technology never kills old technology, because the rate of
adoption is never immediate and there are always laggards that hold onto
that old tech. The rate of adoption will determine the rate of displacement
and the decay in use of the old technology, but it dies off a lot slower
than people in the vanguard let on. People talk about Apple and how their
new technology, whether it be the iCloud or the iPad or what have you, will
kill off RIM or Microsoft. The answer is, highly unlikely. Apple may
severly displace them, and RIM may go on to join Corel and Nortel, but it
is going to take some doing. A lot of enterprises have big stakes in RIM
and Microsoft, and those stakes make them conservative. Likewise, those
companies themselves will want to survive and thrive, just like a once
dying Apple did. Even if the current Apple products do win, they won't kill
those other companies products, but replace them.

New technologies do facilitate societal and cultural changes. But they
don't do it all at once, and the old ways and old technologies hang around
a lot long than we think. In the middle of all that change and hype is a
muddle, which leads to a lot of surprise and wonder and disappointment and
confusion until finally we all take for granted the new technology.

Thanks for reading this. I hope it was clear. I am writing this blog post
on my Blackberry. Eventually I will get an iPad or other such tablet and
blog/tweet/post/etc that way. In the meantime, this form of writing is
fine.
-----------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Handheld.

80 views and 2 responses

  • Jun 8 2011, 10:25 PM
    Archimedes Trajano responded:
    It's incredible that you can write so much on your Blackberry. I guess having a hardware keyboard helps out.

    I agree with your sentiment and seeing how companies are reacting to the Android/iPad/iPhone onslaught and people's reactions I happen to agree.

    In the end it is a matter of people's choices and people are diverse. Companies that still think of simply as markets to dump their product on by catering to those that actually buy stuff are the ones that I think would succeed.

    Apple had catered to their market well. Even if most of the tech heads including myself are not part of their "market" I can see the fascination. I saw the same thing happen with the Wii and the DS.

    RIM and Microsoft also know their market. Their market is the corporate. They are the ones that just refuse to change unless they really really have to. As you can tell by the adoption of IE6 and XP in most large corporate systems.

    Microsoft has also cornered the high-end gamer market. As such, Windows as a product would sell very well because that's the only OS that the high end cards and games are tested on first.

    Android like OS/2 to me looks more like an answer to go against the current juggernauts and leveraging on "hate" of them. Most people who are on Androids that I know basically say they just don't want to support Apple. However, Google has done a poor job of making it a unified front. Personally my taste in Android was soured because of Motocrappa. Yup just one company can break your entire reputation.

    It also depends on where the software goes. Apple had their App Store, it has a lot of junk and quite a few useful apps. Android has a lot of junk and a few useful apps (though the ratio from useful to junk is a lot worse for Android, to the point I don't find any product on the Android Store worth paying for), Apple Store had at least two purchases from me. (Like I said, I am not the target market).

    Apple continues targeting their main market, the yuppies who have more money than what they know and would use it for bragging rights. They're the ones that dole out cash like no tomorrow. As a techie guy, I try to avoid paying for things I can just get for free, for Android, there's so much free stuff there's no need to buy anything.

    RIM and Microsoft still continues with their target market of big corporation. They're the ones willing to spend the money on maintaining licenses and support to get their jobs done. I use OpenOffice and Eclipse while on suffrage on my MacBook Pro, so I am not in their market either.

    Microsoft should continue to make the best platform for gaming, the PC, for the hard core gamers. They spend money on their Windows license just because they're spending $$$ on their video cards already and the Microsoft tax is just a drop in the bucket for them. I'm no hardcore gamer, especially not on a MacBook Pro.

  • Jun 9 2011, 7:17 AM
    Bernie Michalik responded:
    Wow! Great comments, Archie!! That is a blog post on it's own! Thanks for including it here: it makes my post all that much better. I don't have much to say, other than it is very thoughtful and that I agree with it.