Ubiquitous Platforms

In August 2011, Marc Andreessen published his extraordinarily prescient article on software’s role in digitizing the world. In it, Andreessen argued that every industry in the world was becoming increasingly subsumed by software which would, in time, become core to the operations of every business in the world. Five years later, the title of his article, “Software Is Eating The World” has become a staple of the software industry and informs the decisions of technologists the world over.

The pre-eminence of software has not diminished the role of hardware in this software first world. Smartphones have become increasingly commonplace and “dumber” devices such as sensors and actuators are forecast to proliferate the market by 2020. Change, however, is evident; While hardware may still have a large role to play in the world, it is clear that it’s era as the central point of product differentiation in is over; Even arena’s such as Manufacturing and Physical Security, where hardware and materials are understandably central to creating a differentiated product or service are becoming increasingly subsumed by software.

In a world where companies differentiate by moving fast and breaking things, and in which software is an essential part of that differentiation, a question still remains about the role that hardware will play and how it will change the world in the years and decades to come.

Apple’s Analog

Two years before Andreessen published his article, another legendary pair: Randy Komisar and John Mullins wrote their own manifesto on the world of technology startups. Their book, called Getting to Plan B, shared their thoughts on how ambitious young startups should approach the world of technology. Among their lessons, Komisar and Mullins shared their framework of Analogs and Antilogs. In brief:

“Analogs are looking at those things that are similar that had worked in the past. Antilogs are looking at those things that had failed in the past. Then you try to distinguish from what you are doing. It is key to learn as much you can from others before you start down the path spending your own time and money.”

Randy Komisar, John Mullins; Getting to Plan B

Today, it can be argued that Apples iPhone is the primary analog of successful hardware in the software first world. Though many will argue that it has a smaller market share than Android based smartphones, it’s commercial model means it is still more profitable than the Android platform. Mobile analysts often point out that Apple’s ability to command the revenue it does can be attributed to two things:

1. An almost fanatical focus on well designed hardware and tightly integrated software; and
2. An almost equally fanatical control over their manufacturing stack, which allows them to dictate their terms to hardware vendors and tightly control exactly what capabilities their hardware will have;

These two factors combine to allow Apple to create platforms that are able to not only define what the ideal smartphone looks like from a hardware perspective, but how the ideal smartphone behaves from a software perspective as well. Apple’s true victory, however, is not in the deep integration of hardware and software, but in the broader integration of software and society. Under their guidance we have come to gain a better appreciation of what a smartphone could be: Instead of a device that purely allows for communication, a smartphone, if designed well enough, could become the centerpiece to a technological ecosystem that is at once omnipresent and invisible. Through integrating technologies such as the cloud, improving services delivered over the internet and integrating with third party providers through apps, the smartphone has become the platform for a whole new economy.

By deeply integrating hardware and software and further integrating software and society, Apple enabled their hardware to become a platform for a much greater software ecosystem. In effect, Apple’s great success has come in enabling their hardware to gently recede into the background of the experience that is facilitated through the software. The hardware became a platform to carry the software and the software has become a platform to facilitate the experience.

The New Platform

As we know, the shift brought about by the smartphone wasn’t constrained to Apple alone, but grew to encapsulate companies like Google and led to the mobile downfall of companies like Nokia. As technology has continued to evolve, companies have begun to pay more and more attention to the smartphone, realising it’s potential as a platform to facilitate access to customers. The challenge of using hardware to facilitate experiences becomes more complex, however, as hardware that supports software continues to expand outwards into the Internet of Things.

As the hardware platforms for customer experiences become ubiquitous and more ambient, companies face the challenge of how they will make use of the hardware — and the invisible ecosystem around it — to deliver value to their customer. Though it is fairly certain that internet based platforms such as the cloud and abstractions such as compute and storage will continue in importance as time goes on, A question remains, on what will happen to this new platform upon which experiences will be based.

In the world of the Internet of Things, the primary hardware platform which will collect the most data about us may no longer be the smartphone in our pockets, but the series of everyday devices which we interact with throughout the day:

• Instead of relying on the smartphone to be the platform for personal identification, everyday devices will be fitted with sensors that are able to read our personal bio-metrics and match that with data pulled from our personal cloud services;
• Instead of relying on the smartphone to be the platform for gathering data on the users coffee habits, third party “app” providers will connect to the three or four local coffee machines that a user may come across on a regular basis to get a better understanding of a users actual coffee drinking habits;
• Instead of relying on the smartphone as the platform which gathers data on which clothes users like, apparel data may simply be transmitted from smart clothing;

In this world of highly personalised experiences, the hardware platforms that will capture and, thus, own this data will most likely not be the high technology companies that we know and love today; Apple, for example has little interest in coffee machines.

The prevailing assumption is that the data will either belong to end point device creators such as Defy, Bosch or Russel Hobbs. Or may belong to network providers who will create the roadways upon which this data will travel. The fact remains, however, that Defy, Bosch and Russel Hobbs are not what we would term high technology companies. Their focus is on manufacturing quality appliances which are able to work independent of a data connection. For the first time in history, we are hurtling towards a time when the greatest manufacturers of network endpoints, are not going to be technology companies.

Winners and Losers

In this new world of pervasive platforms, a step change in how we perceive the world is going to be needed. Just like the iPhone helped to redefine how we interacted with the world around us, ubiquitous and ambient platforms are going to allow the smartphone to recede even further into the background, removing even the little friction inherent in interacting with the device in order to interact with the world.

Any good ecosystem abhors a vacuum, however, and new startups will need to rise up to address the new human/environment interaction models that the lack of a centralised smart device will create. The companies that do this, however, may not be the technology companies that we most expect to solve this problem, but companies that are able to conceive of massive interconnected systems that react unconsciously to human presence.

Much like the thought of a self driving car did not come out of an automotive company such as Ford or GM, but out of a software company like Google; the ambient systems of tomorrow will need an entirely new paradigm to perceive. As can be expected this step change is going to create winners and losers. Facebook and Google are great examples who were able to adapt to the step change in mobile… Other brands who did not make the shift have been disrupted completely. Another step change in how we perceive technology is coming, with the winners and losers yet to be announced.