Technology Strategy

We are no longer in control of the devices on which our media and services are being consumed. They are becoming more varied and numerous in their differences. This is not a new problem, we have been faced with this issue for some time. Previous best solutions revolved around detecting the device capabilities at the server side and making intelligent choices to render the appropriate, fit-for-purpose content on the user device. This solution requires constant updating of the server side logic to account for all the new devices, this is a complex activity, prone to error and cannot possibly account for all the possible variations. Most recently there have been changes in the capabilities of most modern devices. (1) They have sufficient computing power to work out how to render their own content (ignoring legacy devices for now) (2) Most modern devices can run client side scripts to interpret data and render this data appropriately (3) We can define all we...

I recall working at Motorola at a time when we were gaining significant market share in the mobile handset market. Yet the gains were precarious, we produced some very attractive phones (the Razor was a first of a kind) and although the user interface and software reliability was not 100% there, the phones looked the part. Looking back, I was always concerned about the software reliability (since it was part of my job) but in fact we should have much more concerned about the usability and the Interface. Something the Microsoft has always been aware of. When I look at the Nokia and Blackberry offerings currently on the market, the phones look ok, they work ok, but somehow there is something unfamiliar about the user Interface. It is almost as if the User Interface Fashion (UI-Fashion maybe) has swung - very much in favour of the Android and iPhone. Even though the target markets for the Nokia and Blackberry phones may be slightly different than that of the iPhone or Android, this doe...