Destabilising monopolies

I guess it is IT which seems to have the fastest product cycle. Products come, products go & new ones are born every day and for these new borns there are many that are turned obsolete.

Ribbit seems to have joined the Android bandwagon.
However they seem to be talking of application software that is platform independent.
They are providing their API to developers to come up with ergonomic APIs for mobilephone users.

Well I think for one, Windows Mobile, RIM and Symbian are having challenges thrown at them much sooner. This could mean 1 of 2 things; in the future we are going to have phones that are platform independent or there will be more than a dozen platforms to choose from.

My bet is on the former - that is we are going to be platform independent or open source, as not many users would be savy on multiple platforms.

What the google and ribbit folks are trying to do is pretty strategic.

These companies see a convergence between the phone, laptop and office applications.
It has to an extent already taken place, we call it the smartphone.
At present the dominant operating system on a smartphone is RIM or Symbian or Windows Mobile. Apple has its iphone based on the OSX.

However, if Ribbit and Android are successful in coming up with open source API for mobilephones, then not only will it challenge the mobile OS but will shake the Windows OS dominance in the market.
If it does challenge Windows OS, it won't be long before Intel gets challenged on the hardware front.

The funny thing is, the challenge for Microsoft is not really from an alterante OS(Linux or Mac) but by a handheld smartphone. The open API on the smartphone will challenge the dominance of Windows.

For starters, In Asia alone there are 800 million mobile users.
90 million users on a smartphone.
The PC Internet users in Asia are at 500 million.
A relatively good smartphone is available today for US$ 250.

With an Asian population of 3.8 billion, how can we sell 3 Billion PC/laptop/mobile phones?

The answer lies in net connectivity.

3 years ago, the only thing that was wired to the net was a laptop or PC.
Today if you have a GPRS mobilephone, you are net connected.

Lets say you are net connected but you still need proprietary OS to run applications.

That is where Android and Ribbit are pretty strategic.
Infact there are a host of others who are just as strategic as these two; Editgrid, Zoho, ThinkFree, etc

Anyway what they are doing with the free API, is opening up your ability to connect to the net without any bootable proprietary OS.

You can get online, you can browse with their API, use their online doc and spreadsheets just as you would do with Word and Excel. This means no hard drives for booting and no proprietary OS.

I think these guys figured that the only reason we stick to Windows is becoz we have got Windows loaded on our system. I mean our systems are configured to become a recognisable interphase with Windows.

So what if Android and Ribbit give you a reason not to load Windows anymore, would you still stick with Word and Excel. That is what their API will do, atleast that is what Android & Ribbit hope to accomplish. Their open APIs will become the interphase.

The cost savings on proprietary software and the absence of hard drive to store application suites will make the smartphone inexpensive.

If the APIs nudge Windows Mobile, RIM, OSX and Symbian out, then I am pretty sure the APIs will nudge out Windows OS on the desktop and laptop.

I think the intersting part would be what is Microsft, RIM or Symbian going to do about this? As on date none of these players are on open APIs and free online office suites.

As afterword, The smart chess player is not the one who can read his opponents moves but one who can keeps his moves concealed.