A Seismic Change in IT. Again
Yes, it is mobile ofcourse! As being a very lazy blogger, my last blog was 2 years ago. It was upon passing of Steve Jobs. He had a very strong influence on me to become an entrepreneur. And his vision has always inspired me. So I wanted to share my personal thoughts and respect for him.
It seems I can only blog when truly important things happen like when Steve passed away. And it seems proper to re-think on the mobile revolution he started with iphone on his 2. anniversary.
Now, the mobile revolution is much pervasive and stronger than iphone and Apple itself. With Android's ever increasing share, ipads and other tablets, smart mobile is becoming the primary device for our daily, digitised-than-ever, life. These devices are also replacing notebooks and becoming primary channels for information access.
And we are only at the beginning of this seismic change. IT at every company and industry will be transformed to adapt these new devices and new channels. I can not think of any industry that will be immune to this change. The impact of mobile revolution will be huge on vendors, service providers, internal IT teams, and talent pool.
But this is not news any more! Is it? This year we witnessed countless proofs for this change. 2013 is the year that IT in general realised and accepted the mobile revolution and began acting accordingly.
We will see the change sweeping into internal IT projects, we will witness mobile first approach in most traditional business cases. Probably the change will start from consumer/customer touch points, since mobile revolution is mostly driven by consumer demand and adoption. Employees with the help of BYOD policies will drive the change in internal IT systems and applications.
So where is the future going? What are the immediate consequences? There are several things already happening;
- Talent shortage. Every company is trying to find and build mobile teams. But there are not that many mobile developers out there.
- Increasing outsourcing for mobile projects. As a consequence of talent shift, IT will increasingly outsource mobile projects.
- Application development is changing from web centric to app centric again. One of the consequences of mobile devices that they bring back client-server to IT again. However this time the underlying architecture is modernized and mostly inspiring from web architecture.
- Innovative IT is needed again. After years of prioritizing cost cutting, operation and maintanence oriented IT policies, there is an opportunity for IT to renovate most of the application infrastructure while re-developing them for mobile world. Or they can build brand new, more contextual applications and services utilizing mobile's intrinsic strengths (location, always-on, sensors etc.)
The road ahead is definetely an exciting one with full of opportunities. I am glad that I started my company and working on tech for making mobile transformation easy and provide tools for businesses to help them get most out of new mobile opportunities.
Thank you Steve! For starting this revolution in our industry, that will lead to a better world.
Labels: Mobile
Thank You Steve...
Although we are thousands of miles away, Steve Jobs always inspired me a lot, and I'm deeply sorry to hear he passed away and I lost one of my great sources of inspiration and guidance.
To be honest, I was not a big fan of his computers prior to his come back to Apple. But years ago when I read an interview with him (in a book called "in the company of giants"), I realized a truly remarkable and special man. His views, attitudes, and vision are extraordinarily unique even among the 15+ extraordinary leaders of our Industry covered in the book. We were grown up in an era when Microsoft (and Bill Gates) and Apple (and ofcourse Steve Jobs) were continuously in a battle, while Microsoft was always a winner in terms of market dominance. And as a consequence Bill Gates was the hero of most of us. However, when I started to read and know Steve Jobs's unique talent of effecting people, and creating extraordinarily innovative products (this was some years later after the University and while working as an engineer), I started to realize that one man can touch and change lives of many people. I realized the first time in my profession that, as an engineer we can build truly beautiful and successfull products and we can change whole industries, or even the world.
After reading his life and interviews he inspired me so much that rest of my career was changed. He gave me the courage and inspiration to strongly believe in that, one day I will also pursue my own way to create great products that will reach many people and help them. I do not think he is the sole reason I quit my job and start my own software company some more years later, but definetely he is the most inspiring reason for I now work on "what I truly love".
When I have read about him at those years he was out of Apple and a bit out of the industry, but still innovating in some other industry (Pixar). Years later his come back was marvellous. He not only redefined mobile industry but also started the post-PC era. This is in fact one of the great lessons you can learn in your life that patience with a true confidence in your vision will one day pay off. Some 20 years later Apple started the post-PC era that Microsoft dominated for years and have always beaten Apple (and Steve), and Steve today created a company that beat Microsoft both in consumers mind share and market value. What an adventure! I'm still in the early stages of my startup adventure and I and my friends still need a long time to truly achieve our vision and goals. However, I clearly see that we will achieve what we want to do, and it is more important to do what you love and take the risks, instead of taking the easy way out.
When I talk about these, some friends think that I compare myself with Steve Jobs, and misleading myself that since he could do amazing things I would do similarly. I tell them; those people like Steve Jobs are like the stars in the sky. When we look at them and follow them we know that we will not reach out the stars but we will find our way in our lives. Stars shine upon us to shed some light on the road ahead of us. So Steve will keep inspire me and shed light in my own start up journey. Thank you Steve!
And oh yes, I use a lot of Apple products now. I bought an iPhone to my boy first and everybody loved it so much in the house so I also have one. And an iPad is the new darling of my little daughter. These products are accepted so easily by the childeren and I see them inspired by these products and see what is possible. I hope that iPhone 5 will be out prior to our anniversary for a small surprise to my love for her support, understanding and courage while I try to pursue my dreams.
Thank you Steve, for inspiring me...
Best Social Networking Blogs
While I was trying to compile a list of best (or most influential) blogs on Social Networking, I came upon Marc's blog on "
Marc Canter's Top 10 Open Social Networking Blogs".
The list was a very good selection indeed. And worth reading each of the blogs.
Thanks Marc!
Istanbul, 12/03
Labels: blogs, Marc Canter, social networking
On Second Life and How We Live in Cyber Space
Glyn Moody’s recent
article on
Second Life published on Linux Journal summarized the latest news on 3D internet and invited open source community to join development of 3D applications like Second Life. Following the article there were some wise thoughts on questions like; will there be a true need for 3D internet, or what is the role and meaning of a computer generated simulation in our real life, and finally what role should open source development community take in this new software development area.
Following the original article and the debate over 3D internet applications, I felt that there are two extremes about the future of 3D internet. Which I believe neither is true but both views support a common direction of internet that will have a more pervasive role in our daily life.
Services that are supplied over internet have many forms, and there will be many more in the future. 3D applications and services will sure have a place in the future of internet. This type of applications will have definitive advantage when it comes to simulation of physical world. Gaming, entertainment, education and any type of physical world simulation will be the primary areas that this technology will create many new applications and services.
On the other hand I doubt about 3D becoming the primary form of service or application creation and delivery. The world which we live in and increasingly record and simulate in electronic form, has more dimensions than the pure physical dimensions. Human knowledge is not in 3D form, but rather expressed in written form. Internet technology has been following and will follow this route to create new services to simulate different parts of our every day life; from messaging to e-commerce, from research to socializing.
I see that a larger portion of our every day life will be simulated (and in fact be actually take place) in an electronic network in coming years. Our perception of real world will be enriched by the applications and services of the internet, no matter whether they are 3D or not. For some this new era will be perceived as only arrival of new tools to ease daily routine, and still for some others, it will be the “life” itself. Like, for some, good literature has been observed as more real than the life itself, for hundreds of years.
Coming back to original question if we need open source applications like Second Life, I believe there should be an interest from open source community on such applications. But instead of creating a new full scale application developed open source, developer community should focus on underlying technologies, and evolve these technologies to become more open and participative in nature. Server side software to simulate and manage 3D worlds, and serve thousands of clients simultaneously can be developed by open source community. Server side tools are the most mature software component of open source tradition.
One particular area I find interesting is to develop network software for communication between clients and servers. If we can develop an open set of protocols and an open stack of services to facilitate communication between different type of clients and servers and create different services needed to run such a 3D application, than commercial applications will be developed very easily. Even more important, those applications will than be able to communicate each other forming a real 3D internet.
One way of developing communication and server side software is to employ Service Oriented Architecture. SOA will let us develop services that are needed to construct an online 3D application. Later developers will freely choose from these services to form their own application without worrying about inter-operability issues. A client, on the other hand, that supports these open standards will be able to connect many different 3D worlds. The end result will not be different than today’s World Wide Web that a universal browser is capable of handling many applications delivered over internet.
We should still be aware that 3D content needs to be created on a project basis and this part still accounts for the majority of the effort of creating an online 3D world. Tools that facilitate easy 3D content creation, and encouraging user created content in these worlds may also help to speed up the content creation process. I believe the real differentiation will come from the content itself when technological barriers are lowered.
If open source community wants to liberate this emerging area, it should start forming projects that addresses key technological advancements that are needed to make the 3D internet a reality.
03 December 2006, Istanbul
Hello World!
The first thing in learning a new programming language is to print on screen the phrase "Hello World". So when start blogging it is wise to post these words first.
When I first decided to express my views to internet community, I registered a domain name. After a year of parked page that advertises Go Daddy (and paying $8.95/year them for running their advertisement!), I figured out that there is a much better way of expressing yourself; Blogging!
After a short (really short, in just fifteen minutes) search in Google, I found and decided on Blogger. And another fifteen minutes to set up my blog. All is ready! Now comes the real part, writing the first post.
I think I should explain why I am blogging first. Well everbody's doing it, why not me! Besides, the reason I write is infact to have a feed back on my views and ideas. Ideas are tested best by publishing them. Without a counter opinion you may not know the real value and meaning of your ideas. Any person should put his/her ideas into the review of others. Ideas in isolation may appear perfect to the owner, which in fact may not be that perfect.
Posting a brief description about what I will write on here may help potential viewers. I would like to share my views and ideas (and get feed back) on mainly three topics;
First pervasive computing is an area I strongly believe and support. Both in USA and in Europe this area is being widely explored and many research efforts are conducted to make this dream a reality both from hardware and software perspectives.
Secondly, closely related to pervasive computing (or ambient intelligence in European terminology) artificial intelligence, and artificial life issues. The research on AI and ALife is worth following since significant technologies are emerging that may affect our every day lives.
Another topic of interest is on virtual 3D worlds. With now popular samples like Second Life and There.com, public interest will grow significantly. I see a significant relation between a-life and virtual worlds, since AI technologies will facilitate accelerating building virtual reality worlds or alternate reality simulations. Research and development work will soon produce "Metaverses" for us to play, socialize and do business.
All of these topics have one thing common so we may think about a fourth area which will be covered one way or another along with other subjects; innovation and research. I will mainly be dealing with innovation process and technology management. Regarding innovation I like to cover local (from Turkey) news, as well. So Turkish local research resources will be exposed to interested parties all over the world.
In order to achieve my goal of sharing views and gathering comments from a broader community, I should do blogging in a disciplined manner. Although I have other responsibilities preventing me from frequent blogging, I should, on average, post weekly or twice a month at least.
So that's all today, from a newcomer of blog sphere.
As I said, Hello World!
05 November, 2006, Istanbul
