Three year olds are clever people. Take the example of my son who vehemently resisted our pleadings to ingest more food: “My stomach is full. There is just no place left for any more food”. But his resistance turned to enthusiasm when, just a few moments later, some ice cream made an appearance. Upon being reminded that by his own admission his stomach was out of room, he scoffed dismissively: “That’s my stomach for food. Ice cream goes into a different tummy“.

It is less humorous and hardly clever when a corporation adopts this line of defence. Nevertheless, time and again, this is the very approach employed by corporations both vending products and selecting them. Like most subterfuges the effect is achieved through wordplay, in this instance the [mostly] false dichotomy created using the words ‘consumer’ and ‘enterprise’.
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You know that old saw: “first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win”? It occurred to me that it applies quite well — except for the ‘then you win’ part — when it comes to technology and the attitude of business jocks. Every bit of technology created and embraced by geeks is ridiculed by men in suits as, well, geeky, upto a point where it’s value becomes apparent to them; shortly after which they turn ridiculous in their addiction to it. This second point (of addiction) in the life of that technology, almost always identifiable by the near-hysterical adoption of a totemic device, we refer to as the BlackBerry Apex.

The chart below depicts this finding for one technology: electronic mail or e-mail.

Corollary: not every BlackBerry Apex has a corresponding iPhone Recovery.

Disclaimer: I attempt to kid! Some of my best friends wear suits!

When no WMD were found in Iraq the neocons who had been promoting the war on that premise offered as an excuse the claim that nobody knew or predicted that outcome at the time of going to war. When the economy fell apart last year because of the real estate bubble, Chicago school and classical economists employed a similar defence, that this result could not have been, and was not, anticipated. I am not trying to turn political here on this blog, but this excuse is trotted out all too often despite its being entirely unjustified and ill-reasoned.
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This is John Dvorak commenting on the Apple Macintosh in 1984:

The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.

[ via Daring Fireball and  Jan. 1984: How critics reviewed the Mac - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Brainstorm Tech ]

Finland has become the first country in the world to declare broadband Internet access a legal right.

The move by Finland is aimed at bringing Web access to rural areas, where access has been limited.

Starting in July, telecommunication companies in the northern European nation will be required to provide all 5.2 million citizens with Internet connection that runs at speeds of at least 1 megabit per second.

via Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland – CNN.com.

What’s up with CNN’s graphic (see above) anyway? A Dell monitor, Apple keyboard and mouse, and what looks like Windows style icons/placement. Couldn’t they get a consistent stock photo that depicts fast Internet access better than this?

Microsoft and T-Mobile have lost T-Mobile user data:

The cellphone provider T-Mobile and Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft and one of T-Mobile’s partners, said over the weekend that a technical glitch in their computer systems would probably result in some customers losing their personal information like contact names, phone numbers and digital photos.

via Glitch Could Erase Data for Some T-Mobile Users – NYTimes.com

What is interesting is that there seem to have been no backups to recover from? Why not? Well, everyone from Adam Smith to Richard Stallman to Joe Stiglitz has pointed out, in their own way, the simple fact that the your interests and that of those you get/buy services from might not always coincide, and in a situation where there is a great imbalance of knowledge/expertise, your ignorance can be easily exploited. This is not a point that is particular to cloud computing, but cloud computing, when consumed as prescribed, does increase your dependency and lower your control over your data.

The solution may not be to turn Luddite and shun technology, but the recent Google/Gmail issues and all that has occurred since (Apple’s MobileMe problem, the drama surrounding Tr.im, the above T-Mobile/Microsoft issue) should encourage us to think harder, especially about the trend of moving away from standards, published protocols and data formats, and especially the separation of data and presentation.

Often times, the move to cloud computing (e.g: web-based email) from older technologies designed with the above criteria (open standards, separation of data and UI) in mind, is a step backward. It should be unsurprising that even as Gmail was suffering from a prolonged outage for the web interface, the standards based and client-server IMAP interface was fully functional. For those who started using the Internet after 2000, cloud computing (under which label we might legitimately include web-based services, as per their own claims — to hesitantly quote Larry Ellison: “The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do”) might be synonymous with the Internet itself (just as the term World-Wide-Web is often used interchangeably with the Internet). Online services are the only ones they may be aware of, and this serves vendors in that space quite well. They would prefer that you forget the hardware device you use, the peripherals that connect to it, the power of the operating system that enables all your activities, the idea and existence of rich, powerful desktop tools (software). Again that serves their interests. Does it always serve yours?

Steve Jobs, like me, doesn’t quite get the point of the Kindle:

A couple of years ago, pre-Kindle, Mr. Jobs expressed his doubts that e-readers were ready for prime time. So today, I asked if his opinions have changed.“I’m sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing,” he said. “But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day. Because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device.”

[via Steve Jobs on Amazon and Ice Cream - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com]