THE THEME THIS week among many InfoWorld analysts and columnists is Technology of the Year. OK, I'll play, but with one
caveat: Just as Time does when selecting its person of the year, I reserve the right to choose a technology, product, company,
or even person that may not be admirable but that nevertheless had or will have a great influence on events.
With that said, my first award is for the Machiavellian concept of the year, which goes to Seven for its System Seven architecture
and to Sprint and Cingular, two of Seven's major customers.
I have written about this before, so suffice it to say, System Seven allows users to access files remotely by sneaking around
firewalls, which neither corporate policy nor IT departments support. What amazes me most is the fact that Seven, Sprint,
Cingular, and other companies offering similar solutions, such as InfoWave and vVault, are unapologetic. They believe the
end justifies the means. Their driving strategy: Cause enough waves, and corporate powers will concede and deploy your corporate
solution.
The award for shameless bickering of the year, intended for those who show utter disregard for customers in favor of fighting
for worldwide dominance, goes to Sun, Microsoft, and Oracle for their never-ending struggle to lock customers in to their
vision of the wireless milieu. You might say it is inevitable and in the nature of things, but I say that kind of complacency
is dangerous.
The honest, plainspoken CEO of the year award goes to Sprint's Bill Esry. I know I just knocked his company above, but nobody's
perfect. I liked what I saw of Esry: He admits wireless has a long way to go; he would like to charge more for services but
can't get away with it; and he says perhaps customers will help improve wireless service by buying repeaters at Radio Shack
and sticking them in the basement to improve wireless signal strength. That's not as far-fetched as you might think.
My next award, product concept of the year, goes to Repeater Technologies, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. Repeater is currently
designing "neighborhood" repeaters. About the size of shoeboxes, they will be less intrusive than towers, will fit on the
corner of a building or on a light tower, and will enhance wireless service approximately eightfold.
Sharing honors with Repeater for product concept of the year award is ViewSonic, for its design of a portable monitor with
802.11a built in for home and office. This product, at least a year away from market, will allow users to unhitch the monitor
from the desktop station and take it to the bedroom to watch a DVD movie playing on a PC in another room. Who knows, there
may be an entire secondary industry built around monitor stands for portable displays.
Of course, that's what I like so much about this industry. The ideas keep flowing, in good economic times and bad, and the
ones that catch on create jobs. Once in a while, they even make our lives a little more enjoyable.
E-mail
Printer Friendly
Reprints
(InfoWorld) - In the litigious world we live in, deploying a unified communications platform in your enterprise could...
