By John Furrier and Kristen Nicole
Just last month Apple revealed a brand new iOS 7, revamping the classic look that once set standards in mobile interfacing. Perhaps more important than the hardware accompanying iOS 7 (the iPhone), is the ability to ubiquitously update its software. This is an option Apple hasn’t fully explored, despite having more total version updates than Android. Where Apple’s iOS 7 has had 51 version updates since June 2007, Android has had 39 since September 2008. The difference, of course, is branding. Apple’s ubiquity is beneficial for consumer usability, and thus slower to change. However, Android is ever-evolving thanks to its open-source beginnings, flexible and skinnable beyond the point of recognition. Apple, now a victim of the saturated smartphone market it created, must better leverage the combination of software and hardware to become more nimble and differentiated.
Striking the hardware/software balance
It’s a balance many enterprise IT service providers are also trying to strike, transitioning to a software-driven approach. Virtualization can be a lucrative business, layering less expensive software onto physical components, replicating their value by magnitudes with the ability to evolve over time. Dell, Hewlett-Packard and EMC are three examples of enterprise IT service providers making this shift, setting an interesting example for the consumer space. And Apple’s even gotten a taste of the profit powerhouse virtualization can be, legitimizing the digital music industry while making billions through iTunes sales.
But even as Apple remains successful in the prevalence of its virtualized ecosystem, alternatives are lurking in the background. Streaming music as a Consumer Service has borne an industry all its own, spurring a radio market to which Apple only recently conceded. And other forms of virtualized products have enriched a convenient marketplace for Amazon, selling books, games and music, often at lower prices than Apple’s iTunes Store. While Apple’s virtual marketplace retains the highest in value for app developers building a business, the inherent value of individual Apple users is on the decline, following a peak-and-drop pattern similar to the rise and fall of the BlackBerry empire. One key difference between Apple and BlackBerry, however, is the presence of a software-driven service behind Apple’s hardware, whereas BlackBerry had only its devices to rule a now far more sophisticated mobile market.
The crushing promise of open source
But equally as revolutionary is the promise of open source, its communal approach to innovation closing the gap on Apple and its rivals. Android is at the forefront of the open source movement in the consumer space, enabling a crossroads of data never before achieved. This data exchange is sparking a new economy around mobile software, and this economy hinges on the flexibility of software to be free of device restrictions. If Apple is to maintain the influence of its ecosystem, its own services will require a big boost from data as well. How Apple extends an economy of data exchange amongst its app developers will directly impact this virtualized marketplace so carefully crafted around iTunes.
If Apple insists on trafficking inter-app data exchange within its ecosystem, the iPhone maker stands to reap the benefits of all the transactions taking place therein. But vast are the resources that go into building such an infrastructure to support the fluidity required by the mobile market of tomorrow. And Apple’s scalability could be limited in this regard, potentially squeezing itself out of broader market opportunities. Enabling iOS apps with increased interoperability through supporting HTML5 standards and providing more web-based interactions would also curb Apple from trapping itself in a gilded cage, putting its existing hardware and software combination to better use.
Open source has also proved a disruptive force in the enterprise space, where several major players are pooling resources to achieve the hyperscale capabilities employed, and now being commercialized, by web giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook. Industry leaders like IBM and Dell fully recognize that the future is moving away from the restrictive business approach of vendor lock-in, rebuilding their products to cohabitate peacefully with competitors’ components, hardware and software alike.
When it comes to embracing third party hardware, EMC is taking a proactive stance. “If we don’t do it someone else will...and we’ll be playing defense instead of offense,” says Jeremy Burton, EVP of Product Operations and Marketing at EMC. “I’d rather be driving the train than following it.”
Update Siri, not the iPhone
Apple will want to take a cue from such new approaches to the business of Services, recapturing consumer wonder and making new cases for business-savvy app developers all the while. One gaping opportunity for Apple is Siri, an entertaining AI system that’s primed for regular updates and capable of organic maturation. Several hindrances keep Siri from being open-sourced, but enabling app integration with Siri could expedite the AI system’s applicable evolution. Even if Apple decides to keep this portion of its ecosystem completely in house, a sharp focus on Siri’s broader use cases will truly boost Apple’s appeal. At this point in Apple’s life cycle, consumers would likely prefer a major Siri update over an entirely new iPhone body style -- software impregnates so much opportunity for innovation at the mobile level.
Such maturation of Siri-like systems, as well as an ecosystem that better facilitates data exchange, are two examples of how software automation will aid in the evolution of consumer mobile Services. When Siri is able to anticipate your searches, associate your navigation history to your gas efficiency, bookmark, organize and retrieve tasks and appointments from your favorite GTD app and make dietary recommendations in real time based on allergies, budget and location, then she will have reached a point of automation that better attempts to productize a natural language system anxious to learn.
Galaxy S4 comes with several examples of automation, detecting when you look at the device and away from it, taking it upon itself to stop and play a video accordingly. Google is also positioning its Consumer Services for automated bliss, starting with Google Now. It anticipates your needs and sends information to your phone based on search and social activity, location, purchases and other known preferences.
It’s not just that Siri will be a better product once she becomes more automated, but this act of software automation is a value-add that reduces the complexities of virtualization across the board. iTunes exists in its own silo, marginally associated with its sister iOS apps like iCloud. And every app within the iTunes market must exist in its own silo, hardly able to communicate with or learn from the actions of other iOS apps. Adding to the complexity of iTunes’ virtualized market, limited to a handful of devices, is the growing presence of Android and Windows apps, the rapid development of mobile web browsers as a unifying application, and all the fragmentation that comes along with a mobile economy still unsure of its optimal commercial pursuit. Smarter software will have to simplify the user experience across devices and services, automating the manual complexities that come with owning a connected device or using cloud services today.
Free the Data!
Data will need to be free to flow between devices and cloud services, accessible through a myriad of apps at any given time. And this inevitable data democratization is a trend Apple can use to fine tune its software to better support its hardware.
In the enterprise, data democratization is powering the paradigm shift in the data center, forcing infrastructure to be rethought, redesigned and reconstructed.
"It used to be apps that used to drive they way things are done," says Joe Jagodich, VP and CIO of EllisDon. You build an app and create storage around it. Now, storage and data are being opened up, and "you have to think about your data before you even think about an application or your infrastructure. As a CIO, you have to think about data architecture," Jagodich explains.
There are several elements to data architecture, he goes on, noting mobile, consumerization of data, BYOD. "If you're into that type of environment, which many CIOs are, you have to think about your data creed," says Jagodich. If you have 1500 people with different devices, they can be going out to iCloud, or other different cloud environments, and "that is where you start losing control of the valuable information that your company holds as crown jewels."
As data needs to be instantly shared across more end-user devices, mobile will become increasingly integrated with the corporate business structure, consumer markets and everything in between. The inevitable clash of these two sectors is throwing off the stardust of opportunity for BlackBerry and Microsoft, pushing a hybrid approach with both their devices and software. Microsoft has a very pronounced vision for this junction, spanning hardware, cloud, entertainment and virtualization across enterprise and consumer markets. Between Windows 8, Azure and Xbox One, Microsoft has firmly planted stakes in all the necessary positions, spreading its seeds of software across its own devices as well as the devices of its rivals.
Of course, there’s a broad opportunity for Apple as well, interjecting its hardware with the right methods of virtualization to initiate a whole new market. Apple’s known for revolutionizing the consumer experience, and Services is a promising and necessary sector as the world becomes hungrier for actionable data.
Kristen Nicole is the Senior Managing Editor at SiliconANGLE
Follow John Furrier on Twitter @furrier
Follow Kristen Nicole on Twitter @KristenNicole2
