What's on the technology horizon? Six perspectives—part 1 - Business of Technology

Computer Technology Review, May, 2003

Six leading industry experts weigh in on what's on the horizon for technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) companies. Half the panelists share their thoughts on the next wave of killer apps in this issue's Part 1, and the other half shed light on business issues that will confront TMT companies in the coming months in Part 2, which will run in an upcoming issue of Computer Technology Review. The panelists sit on the Advisory Board for Deloitte & Touche's TMT Trends publication.

Q: What technologies do you see evolving into a killer app in the near future?

Mike Durance, Toshiba Telecommunication Systems Division

In the area of voice-data convergence, killer apps will spring from the needs of mobile users. Internet Protocol (IP) is really a key technology enabler that supports the convergence of voice and data onto the same transport. In the early days of multimedia and convergence, there was a lot of talk in the industry about the four A's: Any media, Anytime, Anywhere, Any device. With the advent of IP, I think we can coin the fifth "A"--Any application. The IP infrastructure enables us to deliver multimedia-rich applications to the end user. That amounts to achieving the Holy Grail in the communications world.

In this new converged environment, it's hard to predict a killer app. The world is more dynamic and trends emerge and fall off the radar more quickly. By definition, a killer app is an application that has broad enough appeal that it becomes pervasive throughout the industry. One key trend that is counter to that notion is the trend toward personalization. More people want to customize their communication solution to their business or personal needs. Successful communication providers will heed that trend.

To that end, I envision highly flexible, adaptable communications solutions that allow users to blend call handling and applications to fit their enterprise needs. One example is "voice mail boomerang." This integration of voice mail and switching in a PBX system allows you to make a call in the middle of listening to voice mail messages, then go right back to the message you left off with. The capability involves the interaction of voice mail and call handling--however it could be any application that business customers will expect to work together with the Key System or PBX, as part of a seamless communication solution.

In the voice mail boomerang scenario, the switch and the voice mail capability are on separate cards or platforms, and are likely written on different operating systems. Until recently, manufacturers hadn't developed the kind of flexible architecture that could integrate such applications. Data and voice worlds have typically operated in two separate technological worlds. This puts a spotlight on one of the challenges facing telecommunications vendors: Data players underestimate the applications behind voice while the data world considers voice just another packet sent over the IP network. When you consider the complex communication needs at the typical enterprise, it amounts to more than adding data to voice or vice versa. The industry needs to shed its arbitrary partitioning of functions and applications before it can decisively identify what the enterprise wants from multimedia applications. Only then will IP overtake TDM, the industry's tried and true platform.

Whether IP finds a place in a particular application ultimately depends on the stability of the operating system, the underlying platform technology, and its ability to support the voice world's scenarios. These issues need time to be worked out. The industry's secondary challenge is to allow IP to go through the same maturity curve that has brought voice and TDM technologies to where they are today.

The increasingly mobile workforce has driven the development of voice-data applications. If there is a killer device for these applications, it is the handheld unit. We usually think of communication as a two-way conversation with data and video as add-ons. But if you think in terms of transactions that you can perform with a handheld, such as buying stock, order picking, or closing a deal, you can see how the proliferation of handhelds will lead to the adoption of multimedia applications in which voice and data play key roles.

Ultimately, I believe that simplicity should drive technological development. People don't buy products that they don't understand or that require them to change their behavior. We'll find that when it comes to voice-data convergence, the applications that reach "killer" status will be those that are easy for the user to understand, purchase and use--no matter how complex and personalized the applications may be.

Esther Dyson, EDventure Holdings

When global computing is pervasive and everything is wired, there is no longer a single killer app. There's a killer platform, and that's what it is. Killer applications will be tools that enable.

Today we have systems ranging from wireless handhelds to electronic tracking systems, but they aren't linked to our world. When people talk about wanting better search engines or better tracking capability, what they really want is more knowledge. And usually, for individuals, that means wanting to know where people are and how to reach them. In business, they want to keep track of things they are responsible for-anything from inventories to customer behavior to tracking the competition.