For whom the bell tolls: microsoft, dell, and oracle

Om had an interesting article today, I’m sure everybody and their brother read it (I think it was sent out by Onlinemedia, but I don’t remember).

He explored the evolving business implications to potentially disrupting web-based applications ala Writely, Gmail, and smaller/faster hardware to enable those apps (e.g. Nokia’s 770 or the Q) vs. a laptop. What was more interesting was a notion he hinted at but did not explore: web-based databases that offer available anywhere access to lots of customized data.

As the online world allows for easier micro-chunking of content, and ajax allows for simplified customization, where will all of these OS independent (or not as dependent) applications store all that personalized data? Yes Google can do it (what happened to Base), doesn’t hurt to soak up the storage costs when your market cap is around $150 billion, but what about security, not to mention those pesky ads for business customers?

Enter the online db companies.  I’ve been looking at Trackvia and Dabble DB.  Both companies have production offerings with referenceable clients.    Although they are not free, the price they’re charging wont’ bust the bank for SMB or individuals.  As I peruse their sites a thought strikes me.  Although they’ve made their products fairly consumer friendly (Dabble’s appears to be more consumer friendly), the “average” consumer wouldn’t know how to use either one.  Whereas email and Word are used by anyone that’s worked for a business, a db is not.  At least not at face value.
A way to solve this is by standarizing several modules (sounds like Salesforce, no?) that are based on solving problems or are solutions that revolve around a usage.  By not focusing on what it is ( a database) but rather on what it can do (say, organize and report on marketing spending/campaigns) and the ease and ubiquity to access it (the web), these could set the stage to hasten the demise of Vista, and 11g.   Latitude will be around the corner if I don’t need to schlep my data with me.

Ok, that may be a bit premature.  But I’m watching companies like Trackvia and DabbleDB to see how they evolve their offerings and soon start to re-position their offering more along solution lines.  Just like Basecamp.

The Real Winner of 2.0 and the Significance

The ultimate winner is…

You.

The consumer.

The customer. And in the near future, the client.

The individual is the real winner because the lock step belief for pre-wrapped, push distribution, mindset is dying. And what has been dubbed web 2.0 expedited that demise.

I read today that Tower Record is done. They were never able to modify their business model from the brick and mortar retail business. It seems a shame in some ways, the real executioner for Tower was not the downloadable MP3, but the Recording industries steadfast persistence on business as usual. Tower filled the gap as middleman: distribution and to some degree the marketing . Rather than letting Tower compile and burn customized CDs, consumers were given two choices: buy the $18 CD for the two songs you heard (the broadcast industry will be the subject of a future post) and liked, or don’t.

Although this trend started in creative content creating/distribution, marketers shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that this is also where the trend will stop. Consuming creative/thought driven content is largely done for recreational purposes. The voice of the consumer has spoken by not spending on traditional consumptions mediums for music and some forms of information (see the BusinessWeek write up in the same article, linked above). Letting me sample a song, buy, and download it right away allows me to also buy impulsively as well as purposely. If you’re in the B2C space, look for similar opportunities. BTW, if you don’t, your competitor will.