As have many others, I’ve been relatively impressed by the innovation and popularity of the iPhone. I think Apple CEO Steve Jobs has a unique ability to gauge when and how a specific industry is ready to change (the Apple way). Though he somewhat missed the first PC market, he definitely didn’t miss the Internet music one, and now he is right on track to owning a big part of the next generation mobile market. The latest iPhone 3G phenomenon (product and buzz) is definitely a great example of Steve Job’s pioneering vision, and while most of the features of the iPhone were more or less expected, the total package, including the pricing and the developer platform strategy, is pretty darn impressive.

However, as a business user, I am mostly interested in three main following features, and so far, I can safely see only one out of these three.

Concerning the first feature, Microsoft Exchange synchronization, the latest iPhone 3G seems to have the full package, meaning e-mail, calendar, and contact push synchronization. I am still skeptical about this last one, since to my knowledge, Microsoft still has not published the full MAPI or ActiveSync protocol. However, I am going to take Apple’s word on it.

The second feature, the 3G modem, is one of the features I have been using a lot lately on my Treo750, and I would not conceive of buying a mobile device without this feature. The 3G modem with ATTW actually works remarkably well and is extremely useful for avoiding hotel surcharges, slow Wi-Fi connections, and hunting for unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots. I can’t live without it, and for now, it is not clear that the new iPhone will have it.

The last one, unfortunately, is a given, or, rather, an “un-given.” The new iPhones will still be “officially” available only as network-locked devices. I still don’t understand how carriers and device manufacturers can get away with these kinds of practices. I completely understand giving a big discount as part of a subscription package, but I don’t understand how a corporation can lock an Internet device to a specific network. It seems so counter to what the Internet is all about. It would be comparable to buying a PC that could only connect to the Internet via Comcast (Microsoft and Comcast could never get away with that). Anyway, I just hope that one day Apple or Google will use their market weight to force the wireless networks to fully embrace the open devices. Unfortunately, Apple does not seem to be headed that way (see iPhone 3G Requires 2 Year Contract, In Store Activation)

At this time, the deciding factor for me will be the 3G modem. If the new iPhone has it, I might just take the plunge.

Having worked for many technology provider companies (e.g., Netscape, Oracle, and Adobe) and being a developer myself (mostly on weekends), I have always been fascinated by the dynamics and trends in the developer industry. I think that, coupled with the open source and software as a service dynamics, this industry is experiencing an auspicious time for interesting technological and business opportunities.

If you happen to build a [Web] developer strategy for a company or a project, you will often need to have some sort of representation of this market. To this end, I have been developing a simple—but useful—representation of the Web developer community in the form of a spectrum which I have called the “Web Developer Spectrum.”

The Web Developer Spectrum consists of four main contiguous sections, from Enterprise Technology Developers up to Hackers/Hobbyists. It is important to note that an individual developer may belong to multiple sections, depending on the nature of his or her projects at a given time.

Here is the representation and description of this spectrum.

Enterprise Technology Developers

The Enterprise Technology Developers category consists of developers who work for big technology companies, such as Oracle, IBM, and Sun, and create technologies and standards that will be packaged in complete product offers targeting large enterprise IT departments.

These developers tend to be focused on architecture, completeness, and standardization, sometimes at the cost of simplicity and accessibility. Compared to other developer segments, these developers usually have an adequate amount of time and resources to get their job done.

Some good examples of technologies coming out of this segment are: J2EE, JSF, EJB2.x, and SOAP. As previously mentioned, some of these technologies, especially EJB 2.x, could be considered by some enterprise developers a little bit over-designed. EJB 3.x has addressed some of these issues by adopting the persistence model from alternative open source frameworks, such as Hibernate.

Business Application Developers

This segment includes developers from system integrators, such as Cab Gemini, Infosys, IBM-Services, and developers from various enterprise IT departments. The main priority of this segment of developers is to build and deploy enterprise applications in order to maximize the overall business productivity.

These developers are usually application-centric, meaning that they focus mostly on bringing the right functionalities to the right users in a timely manner. They tend to favor technologies with high returns on investment (i.e. with the highest “application-out/time-in” ratio), and they usually like to mitigate risk by contractual relationships with technology “vendors” (i.e. product licensing and support agreements).

JSP, ColdFusion, asp.net, Spring, Hibernate, and XML-RPC are the types of Web technologies used by the business application developers. Many of these developers are coming from the 3GL/4GL client/server development world, and often require quite extensive training to learn these new Web development paradigms and tools.

Web 2.0 Developers

By Web 2.0 developers I mean developers who build Web application for consumers, such as Digg, Delicious, Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, Craigslist, and many other Web companies. The successful one tends to start small and scale fast, while the others tend to move from project to project until they find the one that can attract a good user community.

Web 2.0 developers tend to be user-centric, prioritizing application simplicity and design over completeness. Web 2.0 developers tend to like dynamic, simple, and scalable technologies, such as Ruby/Rails, REST, and MemCache, Java (minus J2EE), to name a few. This is a relatively difficult business for technology and tool vendors since this community is very self-serving and usually pushes technologies in the opposite direction from what a typical enterprise would require (scalability vs. transactional).

Hacker & Hobbyist Developers

Last, but not least, there are the hacker (in the open source sense) and hobbyist developers. While many of these developers are actually paid to work on their projects, some of them (the hobbyists) code mostly for fun and self-satisfaction. This segment could be another spectrum in itself, but I combined it for simplicity.

Great quality products, such as PHP Gallery 2.x, Wordpress, and PHP BB are coming from this community, as well as some smaller projects, such as greasemonkey, and other application plugins. This community tends to be self-serving as well and extremely proficient at fulfilling its own needs.

Hobbyists tend to use more scripting language, such as Python, PHP, Javascript, and other accessible technologies, while hackers tend to go relatively deep in the software development stack to accomplish the required tasks.

A few weeks back, I showed this spectrum to Rich Levandov from Master Head Venture Partners, and he raised a very interesting point. Prior to the open source development, technology vendors, such as Oracle, Sun, and IBM, represented the largest developer community on the market, and, consequently, were the main technology sources for the industry. With the popularization and maturation of the open source development and distribution model, community-created technologies have become more and more relevant, to the point where they even eclipse vendors’ technologies. AJAX and Hibernate are probably the most recent examples of such a trend. I still see major technology vendors making most of the technology distributions (given the enterprises’ need to mitigate risk); however, I think they will have to adopt more and more community technologies and standards if they want to stay relevant in the marketplace.

Obviously, this representation in not perfect, but, many times, it has helped me to visualize “developer” business opportunities. I hope this will be useful to others, and I definitely welcome any and all feedback.

SOP services can range from application aggregation, presentation, linking (e.g, Mashup), provisioning, componentization, and context augmentation (e.g., Social Graph and common application data). As SOPs mature, it would not be surprising to see these platforms offer most, if not all, of the traditional application platform services in a service-oriented manner, such as application testing, versioning, data migration, and much more.

In the consumer space, the best SOP examples would be Facebook, OpenSocial, and Ning. In the enterprise, a good example would be SalesForce.com (including their latest Force.com addition) and some of the newer smaller players such as Coghead, DabbleDB, and BungeeConnect. Note that SOP solutions can be offered as a hosted service (Platform as a Service, aka PaaS), or can be packaged as a product (not as common yet). In many ways, enterprise portal architecture can be considered the SOP ancestor.

We can identify four distinct but complementary main SOP access modes. Most SOP providers (such as Facebook and SalesForce.com) offer more than one access mode. Others, like OpenSocial, have thus far focused only on one.

Below is a simplified visualization of these modes and their corresponding descriptions.

A) Proxy Mode:

In this mode, the SOP is in between the user-browser and the application, and proxies all browser requests to the applications. The best known example of this model is the Facebook FBML application model.

Here is the simplified application lifecycle for the SOP Proxy mode:

1. Each page request goes through the SOP server, which forwards the request to the application with some additional SOP context (e.g., Identification and Social Graph information).
2. The application then returns the requested page to the SOP server in a specific presentation format (e.g., FBML for Facebook). The SOP server then translates the “SOP-formatted page” into a standard HTML/AJAX format for the browser to read.

This mode allows developers to focus on the content of the application while reusing pre-built SOP components and delegating presentation to the SOP server.

The main caveat of this approach is performance, since each page request [usually] requires an additional http-request to get the result back to the user. Another caveat is the SOP dependence. Usually, this model also requires applications to output a proprietary XML (e.g., FBML and SNML), which limits application portability.

B) iFrame Mode:

In this mode, the SOP server is between the browser and the application only at initialization time, and all subsequent application users’ interactions are forwarded directly to the application (usually using the browser’s iFrame client-sandboxing mechanism). This is commonly known as the Facebook “iFrame mode,” or the not-yet-released Google OpenSocial “type=URL.” This mode also requires the SOP server to have a strong set of REST/SOAP APIs, since this will be the only way for the application to access SOP context information (e.g., Social Graph).

Here is the simplified application lifecycle for the iFrame mode:

1. When a user clicks on the application page, the SOP server initializes the application and returns an HTML page to the browser with an iFrame pointing directly to the application.
2. Every subsequent user’s interaction with the application will be in the context of the applications, as if the application had its own browser window.

This mode enables full user interface control and maximum application portability. However, developers will not be able to use the SOP presentation and component services, and will have to re-implement common components and look & feel.

Note: To my knowledge, most Facebook applications are using the Proxy mode mainly for to avoid these two caveats.

C) Client-Mashup Mode:

Another mode similar to the iFrame mode is the Mashup mode, which executes the application on the client side (in JavaScript) by providing AJAX APIs to get data from the SOP server (i.e., SOP Context) and the application server.

Here is the simplified application lifecycle for the Client-Mashup mode:

1.  When a user clicks on the application page or component, the SOP server initializes the application and returns the HTML and JavaScript content for the browser to execute.
2. The application (JavaScript) code can make AJAX calls to the applicationaccess content and methods.
3. A JavaScript API is also provided to the application to access SOP data and methods.

For heavy JavaScript developers, this approach can be very attractive. It also forces the application to take maximum advantage of the AJAX model and offer a consistent way to access SOP and application data and methods. It is a common and convenient means for developing widgets (note: OpenSocial is based on the Google Gadgets application model).

However, for full applications, this approach can be a little too JavaScript-heavy and limits portability. It also requires the developer to re-implement some basic browser functionalities, such as page navigation, since each user click will need to be handled in JavaScript.

D) Server-Embedded Mode

The Server-Embedded SOP mode is probably the most involved from an SOP implementation standpoint. In this mode, the SOP server stores, manages, and executes the application codes and data. This approach usually requires the SOP server to provide a browser interface to develop, test, and manage the application. In the consumer market, Ning, Coghead, DabbleDB, and BungeeConnect are good examples of such a model, as well as Force.com on the enterprise side.

This mode works very similarly to the Proxy mode, except that now the application runs in the process (theoretically speaking) of the SOP server.

So, here is a first pass at the Service Oriented Platform concepts. SOP has already made a significant impact on the software industry, as we have seen with Facebook and SalesForce.com. It is probably safe to assume that SOP will become even more relevant to the consumer and enterprise software market as time goes on. From a theoretical architecture point of view, it is interesting to see the lines between online, hosted, distributed, and centralized being blurred.

Note to self: Probably a good time to update my Buzzpad.

Related Links:

• Facebook v. OpenSocial from Widget Box
• OpenSocial and Facebook Platform side by side comparison from Iosart blog
• Bungee Labs opens developer platform-as-a-service from Larry Dignan

1) Facebook to make big push to Mobile

This is more of an opinion than a prediction, but I think that Facebook should make a big push in the mobile space. Apple reinvigorated this space from a consumer point of view; however, mobile applications are still hard to develop, integrate, or promote. Facebook has the reach, the technology, and the platform experience to create an online mobile platform allowing application providers to build, integrate (i.e., mashup), and deploy (i.e. provisioning) mobile applications.

The challenge to build a true online mobile platform would be to take some distance from the “PC world” and focus the mobile specific issues, constraints, and value chains.

Google might be another challenger in this space; however, their strategy seems to be very device-centric (with Android), which will take longer to unfold.

2) Ning to be acquired by Yahoo! (or Microsoft)

On the consumer portal front, I predict that Ning will get acquired by Yahoo! (or Microsoft). TechCrunch predicted that it would be Google, but I think that Google has its hands too full with Open Social to buy yet another “framework.”

Yahoo! might want to make an aggressive move in the social network space in a novel way. A Ning acquisition might allow them to differentiate themselves, at least from a developer standpoint. In a way, Yahoo! could become the social network platform for the rest of us.

Note: Google might very well buy Bebo.com to deepen its US/EU social network presence.

3) Apple to revolutionize the media distribution market (iTunes 2.0)

Well, this one is not hard to predict, but I think that Apple’s move to online video will become big. The WGA strike definitely works to Apple’s advantage. While Apple’s video rental numbers might look relatively low by the end of 2008, when compared to Blockbuster, I think Apple is going to be in a position to dominate this market (or at least, create its own).

The big question is, how will Apple be able to get into the living room? Apple TV?

4) Apple to acquire Adobe

This is an easy and now popular prediction. Despite the fact that Apple has a lot on its 2008 plate, I think, as many others do, that it would be a good strategic move for Apple to “merge with” (i.e. buy) Adobe. Apple is now, more than ever, the king of user experience from a consumer point of view. It would make perfect sense for Apple to also become the tools leader for creating these user experiences.

The irony of such an acquisition would be that, with the newly-acquired tools and runtime (Adobe Flex/AIR), Apple developers would be able to build and deploy applications for Microsoft Windows (as Microsoft developers used to do with Microsoft tools for Apple computers).

5) Microsoft to open SilverLight and/or XAML

2007 was the SilverLight year, in which Microsoft first attempted to take over the Flash market. SilverLight is mostly based on an XML language called XAML which is also used to build desktop applications with the WPF runtime. However, while some XAML clones already exist (e.g., Wayne’s post and eFace) none of these technologies are officially open.

I predict that Microsoft will either standardize the XAML language or even open-source the SilverLight code. It won’t do any harm to Microsoft, and will definitely counter some common attacks against these technologies.

6) Oracle to buy RedHat or SalesForce.com

I was going to say BEA, but this would be cheating now. I think the next one could be either SalesForce.com or RedHat. Oracle has been pretty aggressive in its Linux strategy in the last couple of years. A RedHat acquisition would be definitely in-line with Oracle’s disturb-before-striking acquisition strategy. RedHat new CEO would probably facilitate such acquisition.

I also think that online platforms for enterprise software/service companies are going to become strategic in 2008. SalesForce.com, with its force.com platform, is being aggressive about this, and can become the Facebook for enterprise applications. I am not sure that Oracle is ready to bet big on SaaS or PaaS (Platform as a Service) yet. But P/SaaS is definitely going to continue to grow, and might even become more relevant in economic downturn.

Anyway, both of these acquisitions are probably just a matter of time, and 2008 will tell us more.

7) Enterprise Web 2.0

As mentioned in the introduction to this post, I think that 2008 will be a real start for Enterprise Web 2.0, the buzz-word for leveraging the best of the Web 2.0 technologies and paradigms to make enterprise internet applications more usable (i.e. RIA/AJAX), simpler, and collaborative (i.e. social). In this context, SaaS and PaaS (i.e., Platform as a Service) are going to be critical. (see Dion Hinchcliffe’s 12 predictions for Enterprise Web 2.0 in 2008)

To this end, I am now consulting with enteprise software and service companies to help them leverage Web 2.0 technologies and paradigms for their products and services. See www.jeremychone.com for more information.

So, here you have my seven predictions for 2008, hoping the “recession” won’t be too hard on the industry.

And a belated happy new year to you all!

Facebook: A New King is Born

Facebook was undeniably one of the major internet phenomena of 2007. While its online Internet platform was not a new concept in 2007 (e.g., Oracle Mobile Studio), it is definitely fair to say that Facebook matured the concept and pushed it to the masses. I have been impressed by Facebook’s execution on the technical, business, and developer/end-user experience fronts. Facebook has successfully created a new market for itself, and is ruling it.

I personally think that Facebook has the potential to endure like Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Oracle. I also think that Microsoft prefers it that way, and it is one of the main reasons why they boosted Facebook’s valuation to $15B (TechCrunch: “Facebook Takes the Microsoft Money And Runs”).

iPhone: Great marketing starts when entertainment supercedes education

Another big phenomenon of 2007 was the iPhone. I am almost more fascinated by the buzz around it than by the product itself. I do not think that everything was planned, but the combination of Steve Jobs’ excellent keynotes, a great product, the desire of users for slick designs, and some entertaining PR glitches, turned this new device into a blockbuster phenomenon. iPhone even had gross weekend sales reports, as do Hollywood movies. Needless to say, with Steve Jobs, Apple has everything it needs to succeed in this new marketing age.

From a practical standpoint, Apple reinvigorated the mobile market, and this benefits everybody. So, as a non-iPhone user, I thank Apple for entering this market and pushing the standard up.

Oracle: Self-Predicted Prophecy

Larry demanded it, Oracle did it. What might have seemed unthinkable a decade ago has now happened. Oracle and SAP have entered a channel expansion spree which consisted of buying most of the major enterprise companies, such as Siebel, PeopleSoft, Business Object, and Hyperion. Larry predicted it in early 2000, and made it happen in less than a decade.

As Larry used to say, “I prefer to pay $1B and be right, than $100 Million and be wrong”. Well, Oracle did apply his philosophy pretty well.

I actually think this is a very good strategy for companies the size of Oracle or SAP. The consolidation in this market was probably inevitable, given the fact that what big enterprise customers are really looking for when signing an software license/support contract is the insurance on the product as much as the product itself.

This does not change the fact that enterprise innovation can still happen outside of these big companies, it just changes the opportunities (i.e. exit strategies) associated with these innovations.

Beyond AJAX: Return of the Client

If AJAX and Web 2.0 were big news in 2006, technologies to go beyond Web browsers could be seen as an early theme marking 2007. As mentioned in the “Return of the Client” post, the main Internet technology providers are aggressively putting strategic technologies on the market to try to seize this new opportunity.

Although all of these technologies are somewhat based on standards such as XML, Javascript, HTML, and CSS, they are diverging quite a bit. Standardization might happen at some point (e.g., W3C Web Application Formats Working Group), but this does not seem to be a priority for anybody at this point.

The two noticeable new efforts are Adobe AIR/Flex and Microsoft SilverLight. Early applications seem promising. However, CAUTION, while we might get excited about these new possibilities, making a pixel fly does not necessarily give it a purpose.

Media industry: Mutation Started

Something a little bit more subtle is the awakening of the media industry to “legitimate” Internet business opportunities. I think that before 2007, the media industry saw the Internet mostly as a threat to their business, and like Bill Gates in the early 90’s, did not really see how to make money out of it. However, after witnessing some almost-no-budget shows such as Ask a Ninja and LonelyGirl15 reaching spectacular audiences, the media industry finally recognized the power and opportunities of the web. I think the WGA Strike is definitely a symptom of this awakening.

The industry has entered a first phase which is to monetize traditional productions (i.e., TV shows and movies) with this new media distribution channel. This is mostly a big-fish game, where the latest entry was Apple.

I think the next phase will be for the industry to create a new market for these next generation productions. It will be interesting to watch the incumbents play this new game; YouTube or Apple might be able to become the backbone of a new market.

We can now definitely close 2007. Next post will be the 2008 predictions.

From an internet technology point of view, 2006 and 2007 could be characterized by the rejuvenation of client technologies for web-based applications.

The main theme of this trend is to enable web applications to borrow as many characteristics from desktop application as possible without losing their inherent web attributes such as seamless deployment and cross platform/devices support.

We can identify two phases for this quest.

The first, which is well underway, consists of using more capabilities from “modern” internet browsers, often referred as AJAX, to enhance or build better web applications. GMail and Google Map are probably the most notable examples of this trend, although most of the traditional web applications nowadays are using such techniques to incrementally but dramatically improve their web user experience (e.g., Yahoo, Netflix, and Facebook). While these new techniques are huge steps towards improving the web application user experience, the fundamental capabilities of the web browser have not really changed that much. Every web application is still confined within the browser container which limits (purposely) advanced operating system access such as local storage access and desktop integration.

The second phase, which is gaining serious momentum due to the involvement of major technology providers (e.g., Adobe, Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, and Sun), aims to provide an environment for developers and end-users to go beyond the current browser constraints while preserving most of the benefits of the web. The challenge is as technical as social, given that “normal-users” (i.e. non-geeks users) have learned to trust the current web browser with its constraints.

There are basically two ways to accomplish this goal. The first (Option A) is to extend the existing browsers with new capabilities while keeping the user within a browser experience. The second (Option B) is to create a new application container for a new generation “Internet Desktop Application”.  They both have their pros and cons and probably are both needed. Interestingly, most of the players have a strategy for both.

Below is an overview of the different technology-provider solutions.

Adobe

Adobe is probably the technology provider which has the made the most headway on both options. On the browser side, Adobe Flash can almost be considered as a de facto standard for browsers; with Flex, it has become a robust platform for building rich web components or applications.

From a desktop perspective, Adobe is also pushing Adobe AIR, which brings HTML/AJAX and Flash/Flex to the desktop with deep desktop integration. It is a little bit too early to say that this will have the same success that Adobe Flash, but it does look promising from a technology point of view.

Google

A few months ago, Google introduced Google-Gears which allows developers to extend web applications with offline capabilities.

On the desktop side, Google has been aggressively pushing their Google Desktop product to end-users, and has opened it up somewhat to developers. While Google-Desktop is not a “full desktop application container,” it definitely has some of its characteristics, and potentially can become one if Google wants it to (which does not seem to be the case today).

Microsoft

From a cross-platform point of view, Microsoft has decided to focus only on extending the browser with a Flash direct competitor called SilverLight, with an emphasis on Video and on XML/HTML interoperability.

Mozilla

Mozilla Firefox extension model has proven to be one of the best ways for developers to extend Firefox browsers. However, this is obviously limited to Firefox only.

In October 2007, Mozilla launched Prism, an experiment allowing developers to build and deploy desktop applications using the Mozilla Firefox technologies (i.e., HTML/Javascript/XUL). It is kind of a re-launch of XUL Runner, and in many ways, it is an alternative to Adobe AIR.

Sun/IBM

On the Java side, Java applet was probably one of the oldest ways to extend the Internet browser. However, despite some early success, it did not really scale with the market demand. Adobe Flash and AJAX seem to have taken this part of the cake.

On the desktop side, in a traditional Sun-Java vs IBM-Java, we have JRE/WebStart (Sun) and Eclipse RCP (IBM) as robust cross-platform desktop frameworks. IBM is pushing RCP heavily in the enterprise, and SUN is working on making Java cooler with its latest JavaFX addition.

As we can see, internet client technologies have become a hot topic again, with many big players competing aggressively (i.e. for free). In short, I think that Adobe has a head-start, Mozilla has the glory, Google the fame, Sun the legacy, and Microsoft the money. However, I would not place my bet just yet… Only time will tell.  

Disclosure: I was the Director of Product Management & Strategy for Flex in 2006/2007.

Update 2008-03-23: Great post from Techcrunch about Prism and the market

Here is a funny video about Web2.0. Created by Matt Hembey

Personally, I do not think we are in the same kind of bubble as the first one, but the industry is definitely a little over-hyped right now.

Today, it is exclusively on Facebook and the main feature is to build your sports profile and to add/rank your sports friends. Cool things are coming down the pipe… install, have fun, and let us know what you think.

Feel free to send us feedback/reviews on the Sportner’s Facebook Application Page.

Check out The Making Of Sportner

Want to be part of a startup … from the start? Want to see your ideas implemented? Love to design simple and powerful user interfaces? Or love to code highly scalable and flexible internet services?

(Bay Area/San Francisco)

Feel free to shoot an email at jeremy.chone@gmail.com