Tech firms bickering over make-believe
By Eric Knorr
Special to ZDNet
June 13, 2002, 4:35 AM PT
COMMENTARY-- These days everyone is fretting about the sleazy accounting practices that have grossly inflated revenue. Well, let me add another worry to the mix: Just as the counting of revenue has jumped further and further ahead of anyone actually depositing a check, the marketing of technology has jumped further and further ahead of anyone actually having a product to sell.
Our latest case in point: Microsoft and its just-announced TrustBridge. Like "HailStorm" (which turned out to be synonymous with "scattered showers"), "TrustBridge" is a not a real name but a code name for a technology--in this case a set of software products that will enable enterprises using Microsoft Active Directory to share user identities in a federated identity system. These products (based on the unfinished WS-Security spec cooked up by Microsoft, IBM, and VeriSign) are supposed to arrive sometime in 2003. And when will enterprises agree on the business rules for sharing identities? 2004? 2005?
But TrustBridge is simply Microsoft's reaction to Sun, which pulled together the Liberty Alliance consortium last fall to counter HailStorm and Passport. The Liberty Alliance has yet to finalize its promised specification for businesses to share user identity. Undaunted, Sun has introduced a hardware/software Directory Server bundle that businesses can deploy to prepare for when the Liberty Alliance specification becomes reality. In other words: Buy our box now--you'll never believe what will be running on it a couple of years from now.
And what about my favorite topic, Web services? It's hard to know where to start. Yes, we now have a couple of protocols that enable software components to communicate with each other over HTTP. They may help with loosely coupled applications inside the enterprise (just stay away from the high-throughput stuff that would be bogged down by the fat SOAP protocol). But outside the enterprise, the security and business process protocols for Web services have a very long way to go. How far off is the Web services vision of ubiquitous machine-to-machine communication across the Internet? 2009? 2010?
It seems almost unfair to kick wireless. Or it would be, were it not for the U.S. wireless industry's appalling sleight of hand in calling the upgraded networks that are finally starting to roll out "3G" when they're actually 2.5G. No one mentions this, but 3G was once defined by a 5MHz channel in a hugely expensive part of the spectrum--and required hugely expensive network upgrades. What's a beleaguered wireless industry to do? Take 2.5G technology--which uses a 1.25MHz channel, existing hardware, and existing spectrum--and rename it "3G." Never mind that this will result in dial-up speeds rather than the broadband throughput originally promised by 3G.
To see the lengths to which technology companies will go to shadowbox with the future, look no further than the W3C and OASIS Web sites, where you'll find the swelling ranks of competing standards put forward by companies that stand to benefit directly or indirectly from their adoption. Or consider the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization, which increasingly appears to be a front behind which IBM and Microsoft can dictate (and perhaps exercise IP rights over) the elaborate protocol stack that will be required for B2B Web services.
The propaganda war over tomorrow's technology reflects the odd phase in which the industry now finds itself. Much of current computer technology has reached a plateau and new "infrastructure" is needed to get to the next level--be it standard protocols, standard APIs, or network hardware. So it makes sense that we're hearing all sorts of announcements that presuppose future developments. What's unique about this moment in time is that all varieties of the "next big thing"--from wireless, to the digital home, to Web services no one has thought of yet--require unprecedented industry collaboration.
Unfortunately, at a time when we should be pulling together, Balkanization rules. Everyone seems to be brandishing a winner-take-all attitude--to the point that negotiations are now gridlocked over standards that will result in future products actually seeing the light of day. Microsoft blocks Sun from the WS-I. Sun sues Microsoft over anything it can think of. IBM and Microsoft shun the ebXML standard for B2B trade that's favored by Sun. Not to be outdone, U.S. wireless carriers insist on pushing ahead with incompatible networks. Meanwhile, fierce lobbying on Capitol Hill may kill competition in broadband access on the one hand and ensure Draconian copyright laws on the other--impeding the next wave of digital consumerism in the name of a few big companies retaining ridiculous profit margins. Is this the genius of capitalism?
Inflating the promise of future technology doesn't break any laws. Nor, by itself, does hardball competition. In fact, the industry couldn't function without either, since competitive marketing visions must be formed to build demand and justify the ongoing gamble of R&D. But an industry completely mired in turf wars will have a hard time fulfilling its promises, because the next ramp-up in technology demands new levels of interoperability.
As the years wear on and products fail to materialize, another sort of ugly skepticism may come home to roost that runs deeper than current worries over funny numbers. If that happens, a technology industry that never grew up will have only itself to blame.
Are excessive hype and squabbling threatening our technological future? Or is it just business as usual?
zdnet.com.com
John, Any thoughts on how the OMA will handle the ITRU/MSFT Tit for Tat in Folk Trusting software (aka DRM) !!! |
