We take a closer look at the next top ten "make-it-big" ideas to
try and find the killer application that will banish the
recession
As the tentacles of recession begin to get a sucker-hold on the UK
economy, resellers would be wise to turn their thoughts to the
future. The next recession, whenever it comes, will also be a time
of renewal. From amid the doomed dot coms and vanishing VARs will
emerge the leaders of the next wave of growth. The successful
players in the channel will be those who focus on the very latest
technologies: technologies which remain unsullied by
commoditisation, combining 'must-have' appeal with the sort of
arcane mystique that's vital for maintaining margins in the
value-add game.
The best place to start looking for these future technologies is
the IT industry's equivalent of a crystal ball: the thriving
ecosystem of pioneering small companies and research laboratories.
But finding exciting, emerging technologies is only half the story.
To be successful, you need to take a leap of imagination (and, in
many cases, faith) to work out how people and organisations will
want to use those technologies. So, to give MicroScope readers a
head start, we have selected our top ten 'make-it-big' technologies
for the future and offer some tentative suggestions for potential
killer applications.
Nanotechnology
If it works, nanotechnology will be
truly revolutionary, allowing us to build matter from the atom up.
According to nanotechnology guru Eric Drexler's Foresight Institute
(www.foresight.org), "experimental work has already resulted in the
production of molecular tweezers, a carbon nanotube transistor and
logic gates". IBM is already using nanotechnology to create read
heads for advanced storage drives. However, it's unlikely we'll see
too many high street OEMs of nanosystems in the foreseeable future.
That said, it may not be light years before large nanotechnology
manufacturers are offering to build systems to order from
resellers' designs. Some applications have already been widely
touted, such as the use of nanobots in healthcare and preventative
medicine (fat-to-muscle converter bots, anyone?) - and nanoprobes
that we can send into space. But, given that it's invariably sex
that kicks off any new market (look at the Internet), we reckon
anyone focusing on nanoprobes of a more intimite nature is onto a
surefire winner.
Pseudo-holographic projection
Since the lion in Bwana
Devil leapt out of cinema screens half a century ago, 3D
visualisation has had a bumpy history. Invariably requiring viewers
to wear headache-inducing glasses, the technology once hailed as
the saviour of cinema has been viewed as just as much of a joke as
the films which have used it. In the 1990s, 3D virtual reality was
bandied around as the next big thing, but the silly glasses
remained - only this time they were bulkier and had cables poking
out of them. Although the grail of 3D holographic projection (à la
R2D2 in Star Wars) has still not been realised, companies such as
Laser Magic (www.laser-magic.com) have come up with a number of
ways to produce the illusion of moving 3D images without the need
for glasses. These include the Laser Tank, where laser-generated
images are projected into a container full of reflective liquid,
and the TransScreen, which displays projected images that appear to
float in 3D space. The company cites trade show attention-grabbers
and theme park attractions as potential apps. Then there's 3D
videoconferencing, although it is doubtful a third dimension will
inject much life into this already-flat market. No, the killer app
could be something completely different. As the cuddly corporates
of tomorrow try to reduce the stress-levels of their overworked
staff, what better way than to dedicate a floor of their building
to a corporate 'holodeck'? Here, employees could wind down with a
quick game of holo-Doom or half an hour on a tropical beach. As
well as wads of cash to be made from the initial design and
installation, there's plenty of scope for repeat business by
developing new holo-scenarios for your customers.
3D printing
If holography isn't tangible enough for
you, another technology replete with possibilities is 3D printing.
MIT's Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity is developing a
process for the rapid production of parts in any material direct
from a CAD model (see
web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/org/t/tdp/www/index.html). As well
as the obvious uses in design and manufacturing, 3D printing will
have far-reaching consequences as the technology matures and comes
down in price. 3D scan-and-print bureaux will pop up all over the
place. Entrepreneurial inventors will be able to produce prototypes
of their budding designs. You'll be able to '3D fax' objects across
the globe in a split second. However, the real killer app is not
likely to arrive until 3D printing meets nanotechnology a good few
years down the line. Only then might we really see a Star Trek
style replicator that can reproduce any object perfectly. That
really would be a licence to print money.
Robotics
Sony's robotic dog AiBo has been a huge
success and spawned lots of cheap imitations, but robo-pets are
just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to potential applications
for this rapidly-improving technology. Today's cutting-edge robots
can climb stairs, run for hours without needing to recharge their
batteries and perform menial tasks without complaining. Companies
such as iRobot (www.irobot.com) are leading the field with a wide
range of commercially available robots, including a baby and a
mobile robot with built-in Webcam. According to the company, the
Avatar-Pro is "aimed at providing corporations with a
Web-accessible, mobile telepresence". But as robots become more
varied and customisable, there will be opportunities for resellers
to develop their own applications. For instance, for less than an
office junior's annual salary, you could offer customers a mobile
fax/photocopier that also brews real coffee and wouldn't complain
about nipping out of the office to get the boss a sandwich. Not
only that, but it wouldn't gawp at the marketing director's breasts
or spend half the day texting its mates, nipping out for fag breaks
and reading the Sun in the loo.
Olfactronics
Odour-sensing technology has been around
for some time. Electronic noses for sniffing out explosives have
been in use at major airports for over a decade. Two years ago,
Britain's Cranfield University (www.cranfield.ac.uk) unveiled
Diag-Nose which can detect urinary tract infections by smell and
many academic institutions around the globe are on the scent too.
But olfactronics remains a largely untapped market for resellers.
Possibilities abound, from developing automated sniffing systems
for manufacturers of fine wines, spirits and perfumes, to deterrent
fart alarms that pinpoint offenders - ideal for use in confined
spaces such as lifts and public transport. Indeed, if you're a good
negotiator with a smattering of Japanese, how about being the first
to initiate a partnership with Sony's AiBo division to create the
world's first robot sniffer-dog? Then perhaps the police will be
able to retire some of those poor, coke-addled canines.
Anti-marketing services
As many resellers caught out by
commoditisation in the past will tell you, selling services is far
safer than flogging hardware or software. And one of the killer
services of the future could well be anti-marketing. Already, users
are responding to the Net's over-saturation with advertising by
installing ad-blocking software from the likes of Junkbusters
(www.junkbusters.com). As digital TV and the Internet converge,
such software will undoubtedly gain in popularity and advertisers
will be forced to turn to the harder-to-block techniques of viral
marketing to get their brand messages across. This opens up a huge
vista of opportunity for companies to offer anti-viral marketing
services. Using a combination of neural network pattern-recognition
technology and regularly-updated viral campaign definition files,
AVM service-providers could build a healthy revenue stream. And
since the viral marketeers are unlikely to give up that easily,
we're sure to see an ever-escalating marketing/anti-marketing 'arms
race' which should keep businesses on both sides of the fence happy
and profitable for a long time to come.
Desktop supercomputing
The fact that computers are
becoming ever more powerful will come as no surprise to anyone in
this business. But Moore's law could begin to look like a gross
underestimate if current developments in ultra-high-speed computing
come to fruition. Already, Utah-based Star Bridge Systems
(www.starbridgesystems.com) is selling its HAL 'hypercomputer' - a
machine based on FGPA (Field Programmable Gate Array) chips which
can be reconfigured on the fly, rather than a conventional CPU. The
result, it claims, is a desktop box in the region of a thousand
times more powerful than current PCs. Then there's quantum
computing (see www.qubit.org/QuantumComputationFAQ.html), for which
the ultimate goal seems to be to produce machines so powerful that
they will be able to come up with solutions before they've even
been given any problems. For resellers, all this is manna from
heaven - a whole new computing revolution. But take advantage while
you can - we all know within ten years they'll be giving the things
away. As for killer apps, our bet is users will quickly tire of
such whiz-bang machines. Retro interface porting will be where it's
at - allowing people to run all those old Windows apps reassuringly
slowly and unstably.
Household e-improvement
Not all resellers of the future
will want to target big businesses. The home market could provide a
lucrative niche for companies successfully able to integrate the
latest technologies with a working knowledge of joinery and
interior design. Over the pond at MIT's Media Lab
(www.media.mit.edu), researchers are working at the cutting-edge of
MDF and microcircuitry. Michael Hawley's Counter Active is a
kitchen unit fitted with an overhead projector and field-sensing
array under the counter. The result? A kitchen that can teach you
how to cook. Meanwhile, in another part of the lab, Ted Selker has
been working on a talking trivet and oven mitt that tell the user
when food is at precisely the correct serving temperature. And what
with big-name manufacturers such as Whirlpool and Electrolux moving
into Internet-enabled appliances like fridges and washing machines,
there should be plenty of integration and support work for
e-kitchen resellers. MIT's Selker has even developed an electronic
bed with integrated multimedia capabilities. Among other things, it
will project a sunrise onto your ceiling when it's time to get up.
Ideal for basement flats and nuclear bunkers everywhere.
Smart cars
Since the world and his wife has muscled in
on the IT business, it's only fair that IT resellers be given the
chance to show what they can do on other industries' turf. Take the
motor trade, for instance. New cars are already designed by
computers, manufactured by robots and contain more microcircuitry
than your average PC. Why should it be left to techno-illiterate
wide boys and wrench-wielding grease monkeys to sell and maintain
them? MIT's Media Lab (www.media.mit.edu) is already working with
Volvo on the 'smartcar', which will recognise what the driver is
doing, predict what he or she is likely to do next, and "assist" to
make driving "a safer, easier, more efficient and enjoyable
experience". But who's to say the out-of-the-plant personalities of
these intelligent cars will be what the driver really wants? For
example, a Southend-based City trader buying a Porsche is hardly
going to want a prissy motor that slams the brakes on whenever he
puts his foot down or locks the steering wheel if he tries to
swerve in front of someone.
Green technologies
Whatever your views on environmental
issues, the world's fossil fuels are running out fast. And as
Silicon Valley has found out to its cost this year, your average
UPS can't cope when it comes to prolonged outages. George Bush
thinks nuclear power is the answer - but others believe
improvements in green technologies such as solar, wind, wave and
even clockwork energy will prove more empowering, not least because
a decentralised model of electricity generation would free
businesses from their reliance on a stumbling national grid to keep
their IT up and running. Even overcast Britain receives 750 times
more solar energy than its annual electricity consumption, and the
efficiency of panels is rising as fast as their price is falling.
You can even run a laptop using a small, roll-up solar mat.
Companies like Solar Century (www.solarcentury.co.uk) are leading
the way in the UK, but no one has yet targeted business from the IT
angle, integrating corporate systems with their own source of power
generation. And since many of those former tree-hugging,
dreadlocked students are now besuited corporate IT managers, it may
be an easier sell than you thought.