Future Of Browsers - Business Model Perspective

[Tyler Baker]

Jim Garrett (NAVIX) wrote:

> The "Future of Browsers" from a business model perspective.
>
> FACT: There are so many people who do not have computers
> but do have televisions, will cause the following to occur.
>
> 1.) Mass in numbers = massive potential market demand for information
> access.
> 2.) They all want email like everyone else.
> 3.) They want access to web information like everyone else.
> 4.) The "Industry Cable and Telephone" entities will compete
>     with each other to tap that market and deliver a
>     hardware solution that is not a traditional desktop.
> 5.) Example:
>     Omaha, NE has 2 true service providers to everyone's
>     house. COX cable is 30 percent complete in true fiber
>     to the user, and will be offering all the services
>     (local phone, long distance, 2way-cable, xDSL internet).
>     U.S.West is the local teleco and has experimented w/
>     fiber in West Omaha and gave it up because of their
>     shortsightedness. But U.S.West can't afford to lose
>     the Omaha subscriber base so will be forced to compete.
> 6.) The above example will provide a model for all the others
>     to ramp up high speed internet access, using HDTV set top
>     boxes that will run a new OS. Which will cause developers
>     to target that OS at mass quantities.
> 7.) This will cause a major vacuum and we all know what that
>     causes.
> 8.) Therefore the Future of Browsers is still transforming
>     itself until you have fulfilled all potential web access
>     and email demand. The OS and browser that captures the most
>     customer base will absolutely affect the future browser structure.
> 9.) True real-time 30 fps video/audio consumption and production will
>     occur within that hardware structure and standards will be pushed
>     out and all browsers will conform to item #9.
> 10.) Digital T.V.'s will be physically separated out into 2 parts.
>      The tuner slash computer and the display. Allowing owners to
>      upgrade their tuner slash computer while keeping their 16x9 digital
>      thin panel display's.
> 11.) Currently MPEG2 encoders/decoders can deliver item #9 at 6.5MB/sec.
>      Current uses are distance learning....current cost of hardware
>      MPEG2 encoder/decoders is $15,000. per channel. High end Pentium II's
>      can decode on the fly, so Pentium II class desktop tuner/computer's
>      can sub for the decoder's.
> 12.) This will allow home's and buildings and vehicles and individuals
>      to be permanently linked to the net, and allow people to interface
>      in real time to each other, their home, their business, no matter
>      where they are.
> 13.) Finally, the information revolution will have peaked out and
>      information appliances will be as common and as mundane as the touch
>      tone telephone is to us today.
> 14.) And all the accumulation of wealth that comes from being a proactive
>      information market miner will be exhausted, similarly as the Gold Rush
>      day's of the later 19th century.
>
> This is how I see the overall view of the future of browsers....within that
> overall framework...you all doing all the current XML research will provide
> the structure for those who use XML to create content for the current stage
> of the ongoing information revolution...

I agree with most of this, but this is if you look at the web browser as the
pinnacle of the internet, even the pinnacle of technology.  Monopolies like phone
companies rarely do any innovation and it seems like standardizing on a
relatively old web technology like the browser would be a logical step.  I would
highly doubt that there will not be better technologies to come out which do all
that a web browser does, but much better in the future, even near future.

HTML is an abomination from a developer's perspective, but it is hip, popular,
and everyone uses it.  Before anyone starts taking XML seriously, other than for
using it as a tool for stylesheets that output HTML, a new class of content
viewer will need to be popularized that puts HTML to shame.  Anything less, and
the world is doomed to HTML land and the monopolies that will control it
forever.  Mr Laurent already made this plea which I think is right on target.
Why should XML be constrained by HTML?

Tyler


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