Hiconomics

I’m sure everyone agrees that Microsoft is a monster in it’s own right, from hardware and networking services to the Windows OS… and from Gaming (XBox) to MS Office… there is no doubt that Microsoft still has a large role to play in the tech world.

But… there is also little doubt that it will need to adjust and shift it’s business strategy…

The greatest threat to Microsoft’s weakening grip on the OS and Desktop software market is the recent convergence of three recent trends in tech: 1) laptop hardware, 2) the Cloud and 3) offline synchronising applications.

1) Cloud Computing comes in various shapes and forms from Amazon’s Web, Storage and Elastic hosting services (AWS, S3, EC2) to Salesforce’s SaaS (Software as a Service) model, and from Google’s Docs and App Engine to Microsoft’s own Azure platform. Cloud computing has provided many startups with easy, cheap and extensible solutions to develop and launch their products/businesses. It is here to stay…

2) Laptop hardware has developed a lot over the years, from increased processing speed, to more spacious hard-drives, to reduced laptop sizes… and the latest incarnation to take flight is the NetBook. Much has been written or blogged about the popularity of this device, but whether you consider it like a small laptop or like a big iPhone, it’s a cheap and lightweight device with very few peripherals that has been built primarily for use with the web. Most models don’t even have the capacity in place to install the standard desktop applications and software we’re familiar with. Very recently NetBook dedicated Operating System’s have started to develop, such as Jolicloud (which looks stunning), and Google’s Android OS platform.

3) In parallel to all the above there has been a very notable development, over the last couple of years, in offline synchronisation applications. Google Gears, is the most well-known and is used to power Gmail Offline and online office suites like Zoho… but there is also Mozilla’s Prism project which allows users to create offline desktop versions of sites icons of sites which are synchronised automatically when back online.

Now… if you’re not sure what I’m getting at… let’s combine all 3 together.

Imagine yourself using a NetBook that has nothing more than a Google Chrome browser (heavily integrated with Google Gears)…

If you’re online then use it to surf the web and access day-to-day tools, such as office suites (Zoho, Google Docs/Sheets, OpenOffice…), store and access your files on the cloud through DropBox… or even manage your business using Salesforce and oDesk…

And when you’re offline? Well… open a Prism to some of those same sites/apps, access and manipulate everything and then let it synchronise when you’re back online.

Unless you’re a designer or architect or in any other field that requires dedicated software, like Adobe Suite or AutoCad… why would you need anything else?

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Chrome, DropBox, Google Gears, Microsoft, Mozilla Prism, NetBook, oDesk, zoho