Like it or loath it, there’s no denying that the walled garden approach Apple has adopted for application development on iOS (the operating system used for the iPhone, iPad and now new iPods) has been successful. Forrester Research talk about this approach using the term “Curated Computing” – a general term for an environment where there is a gatekeeper controlling the availability of applications for a given platform. So, does this reflect a fundamental shift in the way that we buy applications? I believe it does.
Whilst iOS, Android (Google’s competing mobile operating system) and Windows Phone 7 (the new arrival from Microsoft) have adopted the curated computing approach (albeit with tighter controls over entry to Apple’s AppStore) the majority of the world’s computers are slightly less mobile. And they run Windows. Unfortunately, Windows’Â biggest strength (its massive ecosystem of compatible hardware and software) is also its nemesis – a whole load of the applications that run on Windows are, to put it bluntly, a bit crap!
This is a problem for Microsoft. One the one hand, it gives their operating system a bad name (somewhat unfairly, in my opinion, Windows is associated with it’s infamous “Blue Screen of Death” yet we rarely hear about Linux/Mac OS X kernel panics or iOS lockups); but, on the other hand, it’s the same broad device and application support that has made Windows such a success over the last 20 years.
What we’re starting to see is a shift in the way that people approach personal computing. Over the next few years there will be an explosion in the number of mobile devices (smart phones and tablets) used to access corporate infrastructure, along with a general acceptance of bring your own computer (BYOC) schemes – maybe not for all organisations but for a significant number. And that shift gives us the opportunity to tidy things up a bit.
A few weeks ago, Jon Honeyball was explaining a concept to me and, like many of the concepts that Jon puts forward, it makes perfect sense (and infuriates me that I’d never looked at things this way before). If we think of the quality of software applications, we can consider that, statistically, they follow a normal distribution. That is to say that, the applications on the left of the curve tend towards the software that we don’t want on our systems – from malware through to poorly-coded applications. Meanwhile, on the right of the curve are the better applications, right through to the Microsoft and Adobe applications that are in broad use and generally set a high standard in terms of quality. Â The peak on the curve represents the point with the most apps – basically, most application can be described as “okay”. What Microsoft has to do is lose the leftmost 50% of applications from this curve, instantly raising the quality bar for Windows applications. One way to do this is curated computing.
Whilst Apple have been criticised for the lack of transparency in their application approval process (and there are some bad applications available for iOS too), this is basically what they have managed to achieve through their AppStore.
If Microsoft can do the same with Windows Phone 7, and then take that operating system and apply it to other device types (say, a tablet – or even the next version of their PC client operating system) they might well manage to save their share of the personal computing marketplace as we enter the brave new world of user-specific, rather than device-specific computing.
At the moment, the corporate line is that Windows 7 is Microsoft’s client operating system but, even though some Windows 7 tablets can be expected, they miss the mark by some way.
Time after time, we’ve seen Microsoft stick to their message (i.e. that their way is the best and that everyone else is wrong), right up to the point when they announce a new product or feature that seems like a complete U-turn. Â That’s why I wouldn’t be too surprised to see them come up with a new approach to tablets in the medium term… one that uses an application store model and a new user interface. One can only live in hope.
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