What’s Hot in a Flat World

Dan GordonDirector of Research, Valhalla Partners

dan@valhallapartners.comTwitter: @pipik

A Word About Chasms & Disruptive Technologies

What Makes the Flat World Flat?

• Friedman argument –essentially “speeds and feeds” – is correct as far as it goes

• But there are obstacles beyond network bandwidth and latency

Friedman’s 10 Flattening Factors

1. The Berlin Wall2. Netscape3. Work Flow Software4. Open Sourcing5. Outsourcing

6. Off shoring7. Supply Chains8. In sourcing9. In-forming10. The Steroids

Bits to Atoms

Tape/DVD Rental

Politics

Newspapers

Books

Music CDs

Shrink-wrap Software

?

It’s not the Internet, it’s the World Computer

• Bursty workloads are common in all layers of computing

• Two strategies:

– Overprovision

– Dynamically allocate

• World Computer is dynamic allocation of everything

The Cloud Infrastructure

VMWare’s Mantra

COST EFFICIENCYQUALITY OF SERVICE

BUSINESS AGILITY

IT as a ServiceBusiness ProductionIT Production

Optimizing

Production of IT Services

Optimizing

Consumptionof IT Services

Cloud wars

Borderless Security

Unfortunately, all roads lead to…

• Bane of an earlier decade, the PKI

• What does it accomplish?

• Can it be salvaged?

Convergence/Divergence

Networks… Converge

• Proprietary networks killed by Ethernet/IP/TCP

– X.25

– VANs

– EDI

– TDM

– Fibre Channel

– AOL

– Cable?

• Networks become dumb pipes despite wishes of their owners

Edge Devices… Diverge

• The “right” device trumps the “one” device

• New devices– Smartphones

– Netbooks

– Tablets

– Nettops

– Set-top boxes?

• New devices can anchor and consolidate value chains

Mobile client wars

What’s the Apple/Android Rivalry All About?

• An Old Story from the 80’s

• It’s all about the apps, stupid

• Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates vs. Sergey & Larry

Ad-sponsored Universe: Audience, not Inventory

• Content is not king, audience is

• Content can draw an audience, but so can:– Flashfads– (Social) Interaction– Search– (Software) Interaction

• Enduring winners can draw an enduring audience

• Good ads make the right offer to the right audience in the right setting

Some Audience Plays

Obvious

• Facebook– Cf. AOL

• Social Shopping

• MMOGs and other immersive environments

• Data-based audiences

Not-So-Obvious

• Groupon/Living Social

• Huffington Post

• Mechanical Turk

Big Data

Ad Wars

Video as the New Text

The New TextThree eras of Informing, Communicating, Entertaining, Instructing, Persuading

< Gutenberg 1450-2020 2020

Ruling Class Face-to-face Read & Write Video

“Moorlocks” Read & Write Read & Write Read & Write

“Masses”Spectacles and

StoriesRead & Write Video

TheaterDistributor

TV episode,

long-form

TV

PC

Phone

Subscribers/

Users/

Attendees

Advertisers

ISP

Big Screen

Carrier

Aggregator (Portal,

Publisher)

Computer

Mobile specialist

Agencies

“Buy

Side”

“Sell S

ide”

UGC, social

Film, ultra-

long-form

Professional

short-form

Broadcast network Local affiliate

Broadcaster

Programmer MVPD

DVD distributor

4/1/2010

Video ecosystem: Who delivers what content to whom

DVD player

Set-top box

Thank You

Dan Gordon

dan@valhallapartners.com

Twitter: @pipik