HP is now “officially” reviewing its decision regarding the shedding of its PC unit, and I’ve got to admit that I’m not convinced here. As I’ve blogged before, the PC market is commoditized very thoroughly and there are few indicators that it’s in any way symbiotic with the server and data center software spaces. IBM, the poster-child for success in the tech business, shed their PC business long ago. Why does HP believe it can justify retaining it now? Especially given that they’ve discredited the whole line to a degree with their earlier decision to spin it out?
The only way HP can recover from this is to articulate some brilliant strategy that creates a cloud ecosystem that includes the PC, and I wonder whether it’s capable of something that radical, or even whether such a positioning could be articulated at all from the PC side. Apple, who has their own set of announcements in the cloud space, would have the pizzazz to make a cloud appliance move, but that’s because they have differentiable brand power behind their appliances. Google could do the same. HP? Come on!
The Apple iOS 5 and iCloud launch today, and while frankly neither are particularly revolutionary, they are still credible steps toward what might turn out to be a revolution. The iCloud mission seems now to be one of creating “unity” among the iOS devices, meaning to create a virtual iOS umbrella that covers everything Apple and essentially makes iOS a virtual OS residing in part in every appliance and also in the cloud. What Apple has not yet done, but that I’m confident it will do, is to realize the potential of that model with services beyond collective iOS chatting.
We could call what’s likely to emerge from the Apple/Google/Microsoft dynamic “social communications” but it’s also arguably the first step toward network-supported behavior modification, something that’s going to unite identity, LBS, demography, buying/shopping behavior, advertising and promotion, and a bunch of other things. Why? Because it creates a kind of parallel universe in (dare I use the cliché) cyberspace where our alter egos have electronic tools and systemic knowledge they share with the real us through our appliances. That’s the end-game for everybody.
The O2 subsidiary of Telefonica is getting into the game too, or at least getting into the IP-voice-for-free game, with its own Skype-like offering, called “O2 Connect”. This is a WiFi-only service that appears to be working to capture O2 user free-call loyalty and prevent too much of a shift to an OTT voice offering. T-Mobile, who launched a kind of cross-platform free-call service called “Bobsled” has expanded its offering to cover most of the PC and appliance space. Of the two, despite the WiFi focus, I think O2 has the edge, not so much for features (what are free calling features anyway?) but because the O2 offering is an outgrowth of Telefonica Digital. That’s the new BU that’s been positioned to create cross-platform service-layer offerings. Arguably this is the most advanced and aggressive position taken by a Euro telco, and I think it’s a pretty clear signal that things are going to heat up in the service layer, not only among the OTTs but even between the OTTs and the telcos.
One interesting slant to this is that O2 Connect is based on Jajah, a VoIP free-call service that Telefonica acquired. This is yet another example of operators (in Europe in particular) going out and buying service-layer technology because vendors have dragged their feet in supporting the business models the operators need to have supported. I noted a couple of months ago that I was starting to see active resentment of vendor attitudes crop up in large telcos, and there may be a real “vote with your feet” movement here, where operators decide to roll their own service layers. We’ve had over 800 downloads on our ExperiaSphere Multi-Screen Video Application Note, for example; I doubt vendors have been responsible! Operators need a service layer, and they’re going to get one, one way or the other.