It isn't possible to build resilient communities through a reprise of 20th Century Civil Defense initiatives. That approach (depicted by this classic video, "Duck and Cover"), which relied on simplistic messaging, mass drills, and government sponsorship wouldn't work in today's environment . One reason is that, at least in developed countries, communities are generally too hollow (little primary loyalty is left) and fractious to even consider it. Another is that the economic strains on most communities are too severe to consider centrally mandated change, without first demonstrating the benefits. A better approach is to initiate an economic insurgency. Here's one potential pathway:
* Initiate. A small group of advocates builds a community platform: a microgrid, composting center, subscription farm, etc. This platform should include all of the necessary characteristics; from two-way interaction to simple expansibility.
* Grow. The group markets the initiative to others in the community with a focus on the economic benefits of participation. Savings. Income. Quality (of the product and the community). Build an ecosystem of participants. Encourage people to build businesses based on the platform.
* Leverage. Another group, which may or may not include the members of the first group, builds another (complimentary) community platform and repeats the evangelical effort. The process is repeated until the required platforms are in place.
As disruptions, shortages, instability, brown-outs, price spikes, credit crunches, etc. begin to sweep through the community, these platforms will gain greater adoption (and critical mass for rapid expansion). However, the best path to growth and success, isn't through forced participation and ubiquitous services. Instead, it is expansion through voluntary participation (which is nearly identical to how global guerrilla movements and organizations grow). This is important:
Membership in a resilient community will be less a function of geography and more the result of voluntary association. In this sense, it is a virtual economic/resilient overlay on existing geographical communities that over time will become dominant.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Wall Street, What's Next ? by Frank Gaffney
The question on Wall Street in the wake of the latest meltdowns in the U.S. financial sector is "Who's next?" The more important issue is not which of the major banks or investment firms will follow Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy or Merrill Lynch into fire sale. Rather, the question should be "What's next?"
After all, the problem afflicting so much of the U.S. capital markets - and, therefore, those around the world - is not one of individual corporations hitting a rough patch and requiring bail-outs from the federal government or the private sector. It is, instead, the result of a reckless disregard for sound investing practices in the unscrupulous pursuit of profit. In a word, the last "what" was "subprime."
As we all know by now, the practice of building financial houses of cards on various investment instruments based in nontransparent and problematic subprime mortgage-backed securities was a formula for disaster. It induced firms that not only should have known better but are required to behave better to perform unconscionably. In the process, they violated industry standards and government regulations with respect to transparency, disclosure, due diligence, good governance and accountability.
Tragically, in the process of leaping out of the scalding subprime frying pan, Wall Street is heading directly into a fire that promises, if anything, to be more devastating than the present disaster. Incredibly, it bears all the hallmarks of subprime with respect to a lack of transparency, a systematic failure to disclose and an utter absence of due diligence, good governance and accountability. The next "what" is called Shariah-Compliant Finance (SCF).
Shariah, of course, is the term the Islamists use to describe the ruthlessly repressive, totalitarian program they believe should govern every aspect of the lives of faithful Muslims. It is also the instrument they intend to use to rule the world. The first clue that something is wrong with Wall Street's next big thing is that it is Shariah-compliant.
The next clue is how Shariah-Compliant Finance works. Like subprime, it is a black box, in which management and investors alike are told to trust in the experts. In this case, the experts are Shariah authorities who are accorded exclusive responsibility for determining whether investments are "pure" (halal) and therefore acceptable, or "impure" (haram) and not.
As an important monograph on the subject recently issued by the McCormick Foundation and the Center for Security Policy (for copies contact the Center at www.SecureFreedom.org) makes clear, these authorities are, unsurprisingly, adherents to Shariah. A number of them explicitly embrace its call to jihad (including a former senior member of the Dow Jones Islamic Index, Sheik Taqi Usmani). This "holy war" is to be waged where possible through violent means, where necessary through "soft" means like Shariah-Compliant Finance. For this reason, such Islamists call SCF "financial jihad."
Earlier this year, David Yerushalmi, a litigator specializing in securities law and an expert on Shariah, produced a riveting legal memorandum (soon to appear in the University of Utah Law Review) examining the civil and criminal exposure inherent in Shariah-Compliant Finance. His conclusion: banks and investment houses offering SCF products may be enabling or engaging in the following: racketeering, antitrust activity, securities fraud, consumer fraud and/or material support for terror.
What makes Shariah-Compliant Finance even more dangerous than subprime is that, in its effort to legitimize and institutionalize Shariah in America, it is advancing a criminal conspiracy whose purpose is the violent overthrow of the United States Constitution and government in favor of Islamic rule. That would make it sedition.
For these reasons, we should be especially wary of the purported silver lining to the current Wall Street crisis: the infusion of vast quantities of petrodollars, primarily from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' Saudi Arabia and other Islamist nations in the Persian Gulf. It is bad enough that these putative rescuers of our subprime-fueled liquidity debacle are buying up engines of our capital markets for pennies on the dollar. Worse yet, they are, in the process, putting themselves in a position to promote Shariah-Compliant Finance and the seditious theo-political agenda it serves.
A forthcoming book about SCF by Center for Security Policy Vice President Alex Alexiev offers a further, sobering thought about the fire next time: It is becoming ever-harder to differentiate between the Gulf states' so-called Sovereign Wealth Funds (actually they are the slush funds of the sovereigns) and Shariah-Compliant Finance. The former is increasingly being invested in ways that promote the latter, adding unfathomably large pools of funds to what is estimated already to be an $800 billion global industry.
The Center for Security Policy has sent copies of David Yerushalmi's legal memorandum to the heads of scores of Wall Street firms and the nation's leading commercial banks, warning them of the ominous similarities between subprime and SCF. Interestingly, only the late Merrill Lynch bothered to respond, albeit with a vacuous note blithely affirming its concern about terrorism.
Fortunately, Congress is beginning to recognize the possible peril in what may happen next to Wall Street. Notably, last month, a senior and highly respected member of the Senate Finance Committee, Arizona Republican Jon Kyl, wrote Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Chris Cox, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking them to respond to Mr. Yerushalmi's analysis of Shariah-Compliant Finance.
The question occurs: Will they encourage or discourage the capital markets' leap into the fire via a headlong plunge into subprime on seditious steroids?
After all, the problem afflicting so much of the U.S. capital markets - and, therefore, those around the world - is not one of individual corporations hitting a rough patch and requiring bail-outs from the federal government or the private sector. It is, instead, the result of a reckless disregard for sound investing practices in the unscrupulous pursuit of profit. In a word, the last "what" was "subprime."
As we all know by now, the practice of building financial houses of cards on various investment instruments based in nontransparent and problematic subprime mortgage-backed securities was a formula for disaster. It induced firms that not only should have known better but are required to behave better to perform unconscionably. In the process, they violated industry standards and government regulations with respect to transparency, disclosure, due diligence, good governance and accountability.
Tragically, in the process of leaping out of the scalding subprime frying pan, Wall Street is heading directly into a fire that promises, if anything, to be more devastating than the present disaster. Incredibly, it bears all the hallmarks of subprime with respect to a lack of transparency, a systematic failure to disclose and an utter absence of due diligence, good governance and accountability. The next "what" is called Shariah-Compliant Finance (SCF).
Shariah, of course, is the term the Islamists use to describe the ruthlessly repressive, totalitarian program they believe should govern every aspect of the lives of faithful Muslims. It is also the instrument they intend to use to rule the world. The first clue that something is wrong with Wall Street's next big thing is that it is Shariah-compliant.
The next clue is how Shariah-Compliant Finance works. Like subprime, it is a black box, in which management and investors alike are told to trust in the experts. In this case, the experts are Shariah authorities who are accorded exclusive responsibility for determining whether investments are "pure" (halal) and therefore acceptable, or "impure" (haram) and not.
As an important monograph on the subject recently issued by the McCormick Foundation and the Center for Security Policy (for copies contact the Center at www.SecureFreedom.org) makes clear, these authorities are, unsurprisingly, adherents to Shariah. A number of them explicitly embrace its call to jihad (including a former senior member of the Dow Jones Islamic Index, Sheik Taqi Usmani). This "holy war" is to be waged where possible through violent means, where necessary through "soft" means like Shariah-Compliant Finance. For this reason, such Islamists call SCF "financial jihad."
Earlier this year, David Yerushalmi, a litigator specializing in securities law and an expert on Shariah, produced a riveting legal memorandum (soon to appear in the University of Utah Law Review) examining the civil and criminal exposure inherent in Shariah-Compliant Finance. His conclusion: banks and investment houses offering SCF products may be enabling or engaging in the following: racketeering, antitrust activity, securities fraud, consumer fraud and/or material support for terror.
What makes Shariah-Compliant Finance even more dangerous than subprime is that, in its effort to legitimize and institutionalize Shariah in America, it is advancing a criminal conspiracy whose purpose is the violent overthrow of the United States Constitution and government in favor of Islamic rule. That would make it sedition.
For these reasons, we should be especially wary of the purported silver lining to the current Wall Street crisis: the infusion of vast quantities of petrodollars, primarily from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' Saudi Arabia and other Islamist nations in the Persian Gulf. It is bad enough that these putative rescuers of our subprime-fueled liquidity debacle are buying up engines of our capital markets for pennies on the dollar. Worse yet, they are, in the process, putting themselves in a position to promote Shariah-Compliant Finance and the seditious theo-political agenda it serves.
A forthcoming book about SCF by Center for Security Policy Vice President Alex Alexiev offers a further, sobering thought about the fire next time: It is becoming ever-harder to differentiate between the Gulf states' so-called Sovereign Wealth Funds (actually they are the slush funds of the sovereigns) and Shariah-Compliant Finance. The former is increasingly being invested in ways that promote the latter, adding unfathomably large pools of funds to what is estimated already to be an $800 billion global industry.
The Center for Security Policy has sent copies of David Yerushalmi's legal memorandum to the heads of scores of Wall Street firms and the nation's leading commercial banks, warning them of the ominous similarities between subprime and SCF. Interestingly, only the late Merrill Lynch bothered to respond, albeit with a vacuous note blithely affirming its concern about terrorism.
Fortunately, Congress is beginning to recognize the possible peril in what may happen next to Wall Street. Notably, last month, a senior and highly respected member of the Senate Finance Committee, Arizona Republican Jon Kyl, wrote Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Chris Cox, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking them to respond to Mr. Yerushalmi's analysis of Shariah-Compliant Finance.
The question occurs: Will they encourage or discourage the capital markets' leap into the fire via a headlong plunge into subprime on seditious steroids?
SDK 3.3.3: The iPhone Podcaster Surprise Myth by Daniel Eran Dilger
According to a growing swell of supposedly outraged developers, the creator of the Podcaster app had no warning that Apple might restrict the app from the iPhone App Store because there are no clear guidelines about what apps might be rejected or why. They’re wrong, here’s why.
A Word on the Other Apps Store.
When I wrote “The Other iPhone Apps Store,” I primarily had in mind the marketing angle of Google’s Android Market and other mobile platforms that are trying to get across that Apple’s restrictions in its Apps Store are nothing like what they offer or will offer, not the sham controversy surrounding Podcaster.
The point was that while the iTunes’ App Store serves the needs of most iPhone users, there is also an option to get the kind of experimental, do it yourself open app scene that exists on other platforms. Like Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Palm, the iPhone jailbreak community has no central market or billing mechanism, a factor that has limited the effectiveness of all of them to deliver apps to users.
I wasn’t presenting that iTunes was rivaled by the jailbreak community, nor that there was any guarantee that jailbreak apps would work flawlessly, look as good as Apple’s own store apps, or be as financially viable. I wasn’t comparing jailbreak apps to Apple’s App Store at all; I was comparing them to the potential for Google’s Android Market and the existing dysfunctional markets for mobile software.
Jailbreak apps are plagued with uncertainty. They could serve as a vector for malware risks, brick your phone, kill your battery, and can certainly make the iPhone look as clumsy and junky as any other mobile phone platform. The point was that those jailbroken apps are just as good (and certainly no worse than) other mobile platforms’ official software models.
The difference between the Apps Store and the jailbreak community apps is quite obvious in terms of all the factors I outlined: expense, quality, and security. Jailbreak apps simply aren’t going to solve all of the issues anyone can raise with Apple’s App Store (the series of limitations I noted) without creating serious new problems, but I never claimed they would.
The Other iPhone Apps Store: The Class Filter.
However, the idea that developers are building apps and then getting rejected out of nowhere is being taken in absurd directions. The idea itself is simply wrong.
Apple does have a series of undefined limitations on taste and class, the most obvious being that it doesn’t want to mock itself by proliferating its App Store shelves with fart jokes. It might wiser for Apple to create a ghetto category that allows for these less classy apps for those who would be amused by them, without just making a blanket refusal on such a difficult to define line. Apple probably couldn’t have anticipated needing a policy that defined fart jokes as a category that would be expressly forbidden, nor does it need to articulate such boundaries.
At the same time however, there are clearer guidelines in place for serious apps. Among them is the fact that apps can’t install nagware or even refer to the paid version of their app using certain language. One app, VNC Lite, was asked to remove a sloppily worded nag screen for its paid version (below), which it has since excised in an update.
Apple is an expert merchandizer, and spends a lot of thought about how to market items. Just as the iPod and iPhone create a halo over its other products, a sloppy, ugly product would create a negative cloud over other products it sells.
Deciding where to draw the line between classy and restraint of expression is difficult, and Apple needs to take caution that it does not set up an entirely lifeless monotony of apps burdened by excessive rules. However, it is far easier to decay into a cesspool of junk than it is to accidently become too sophisticated and elite. The Apps Store has only been open for two months, so Apple and developers are still figuring out how things work.
The Podcaster Surprise Myth.
That having been noted, the “controversy” surrounding Podcaster is a joke. The iPhone SDK clearly outlines “Your Obligations” in its section 3, with 3.2 addressing “Use of the SDK” and 3.3 laying out “Program Requirements for Applications.”
Under section 3.3 (I’m looking at a “pre-release confidential” version that was freely available on the web from a Google search; this may have changed slightly in newer revisions), it lists fifteen very simple requirements related to APIs and functionality. The third one:
3.3.3 Without Apple’s prior written approval, an Application may not provide, unlock or enable additional features or functionality through distribution mechanisms other than the iTunes Store.
SDK 3.3.3
Podcaster quite obviously serves to unlock a feature using a distribution mechanism outside the iTunes Store. This limitation would also include apps that are designed to install other apps independent of iTunes (such as the Cydia jailbreak app - it’s not in the Apps Store either), or any other app that distributes song, TV, or movie downloads or podcasts.
One can complain that Apple is not handing its platform over to third party developer control again, something that worked out disastrously on the original Macintosh, but it’s simply ignorant to complain that Apple is shooting developers out of the sky without warning.
Other limitations in the SDK expressly forbid:
* using unpublished or private APIs
* installing or launching other executable code (such as plugins)
* writing data outside ‘the Application’s designated container area’
* failing to ‘comply with the Human Interface Guidelines’
* any recorder apps that fail t’o comply with all applicable privacy laws and regulations [...] including but not limited [...] a reasonably conspicuous visual indicator
* illegal use of location services or marketing apps ‘for real time route guidance’, automatic control of vehicles, or life saving purposes
* location based services that do not ‘obtain consent from an individual’ when data is collected or transmitted
* overriding Apple’s warnings and consent panels to secretly use location data without the user’s permission
* using any copyright material without the proper licensing
* ‘contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind’
* ‘contain any malware, malicious or harmful code’
* using FOSS in ways that do not comply with its license, or would subject any part of the SDK to any external licensing terms or restrictions
* when using cellular data, failure to ‘comply with Apple’s best practices and other guidelines on how Applications should access and use the cellular network [...] in Apple’s reasonable judgment excessively use or unduly burden network capacity or bandwidth [...] have Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) functionality [over cellular networks]
Those limits are clearly stated and part of the agreement every developer has to sign off on when joining the iPhone SDK. Most of them protect users in ways Google and Microsoft won’t. Some protect Apple’s image, some protect FOSS, some protect Apple’s cellular partners. There’s very little that can be reasonably attacked, but no iPhone developers can say they weren’t aware of them.
Additionally, to clarify, while Podcaster the SDK app was not accepted into the Apps Store, there is no restriction upon web apps such as Podcaster.fm’s Podcaster 2.0, which can present and stream podcasts. The complaint revolves around a local app that downloads files to the iPhone, a potential restriction of other limitations cited above, including bandwidth on cellular networks.
Misrepresented to Users.
This is a particularly shameful thing for developers in the SDK program to misrepresent, because the restrictions are covered in the program’s SDK are are not supposed to be published publicly. That makes it particularly unfair to create a myth about “Apple persecution” when the developers should have known from the start that the app wouldn’t be accepted, and that they should have obtained “prior written approval” before starting any work.
The developer of Podcaster may not have paid adequate attention to what he was doing, but that’s not Apple’s fault. It appears that he simply doesn’t understand the issue. The Almerica blog complains “Apple Rep says: Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes,” and continued, “I find this a bit strange considering there are numerous apps that duplicate the functionality of other apps. For example, any calculator app is duplicating the functionality of Apples calculator app.”
Does he really not see a difference between replacing the calculator and installing an end run around iTunes for distributing podcasts? Here’s a hint: the calculator isn’t an integral part of the business plan behind the iPod and iPhone, while iTunes is. Should Apple be forced to allow competitors to install competing platforms such as Real Player, Windows Media, Flash, Java, alternative mail readers and web browsers?
That was a primary complaint about Microsoft, which set up a software market for an open API on PCs and then subsequently used its existing monopoly position to increasingly restrict trade across the entire PC market throughout the 90s. Does the same argument apply to Apple, a hardware company which has never positioned the App Store as an unrestricted, open platform, and which does not maintain a monopoly on mobile hardware or software?
A Word on the Other Apps Store.
When I wrote “The Other iPhone Apps Store,” I primarily had in mind the marketing angle of Google’s Android Market and other mobile platforms that are trying to get across that Apple’s restrictions in its Apps Store are nothing like what they offer or will offer, not the sham controversy surrounding Podcaster.
The point was that while the iTunes’ App Store serves the needs of most iPhone users, there is also an option to get the kind of experimental, do it yourself open app scene that exists on other platforms. Like Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Palm, the iPhone jailbreak community has no central market or billing mechanism, a factor that has limited the effectiveness of all of them to deliver apps to users.
I wasn’t presenting that iTunes was rivaled by the jailbreak community, nor that there was any guarantee that jailbreak apps would work flawlessly, look as good as Apple’s own store apps, or be as financially viable. I wasn’t comparing jailbreak apps to Apple’s App Store at all; I was comparing them to the potential for Google’s Android Market and the existing dysfunctional markets for mobile software.
Jailbreak apps are plagued with uncertainty. They could serve as a vector for malware risks, brick your phone, kill your battery, and can certainly make the iPhone look as clumsy and junky as any other mobile phone platform. The point was that those jailbroken apps are just as good (and certainly no worse than) other mobile platforms’ official software models.
The difference between the Apps Store and the jailbreak community apps is quite obvious in terms of all the factors I outlined: expense, quality, and security. Jailbreak apps simply aren’t going to solve all of the issues anyone can raise with Apple’s App Store (the series of limitations I noted) without creating serious new problems, but I never claimed they would.
The Other iPhone Apps Store: The Class Filter.
However, the idea that developers are building apps and then getting rejected out of nowhere is being taken in absurd directions. The idea itself is simply wrong.
Apple does have a series of undefined limitations on taste and class, the most obvious being that it doesn’t want to mock itself by proliferating its App Store shelves with fart jokes. It might wiser for Apple to create a ghetto category that allows for these less classy apps for those who would be amused by them, without just making a blanket refusal on such a difficult to define line. Apple probably couldn’t have anticipated needing a policy that defined fart jokes as a category that would be expressly forbidden, nor does it need to articulate such boundaries.
At the same time however, there are clearer guidelines in place for serious apps. Among them is the fact that apps can’t install nagware or even refer to the paid version of their app using certain language. One app, VNC Lite, was asked to remove a sloppily worded nag screen for its paid version (below), which it has since excised in an update.
Apple is an expert merchandizer, and spends a lot of thought about how to market items. Just as the iPod and iPhone create a halo over its other products, a sloppy, ugly product would create a negative cloud over other products it sells.
Deciding where to draw the line between classy and restraint of expression is difficult, and Apple needs to take caution that it does not set up an entirely lifeless monotony of apps burdened by excessive rules. However, it is far easier to decay into a cesspool of junk than it is to accidently become too sophisticated and elite. The Apps Store has only been open for two months, so Apple and developers are still figuring out how things work.
The Podcaster Surprise Myth.
That having been noted, the “controversy” surrounding Podcaster is a joke. The iPhone SDK clearly outlines “Your Obligations” in its section 3, with 3.2 addressing “Use of the SDK” and 3.3 laying out “Program Requirements for Applications.”
Under section 3.3 (I’m looking at a “pre-release confidential” version that was freely available on the web from a Google search; this may have changed slightly in newer revisions), it lists fifteen very simple requirements related to APIs and functionality. The third one:
3.3.3 Without Apple’s prior written approval, an Application may not provide, unlock or enable additional features or functionality through distribution mechanisms other than the iTunes Store.
SDK 3.3.3
Podcaster quite obviously serves to unlock a feature using a distribution mechanism outside the iTunes Store. This limitation would also include apps that are designed to install other apps independent of iTunes (such as the Cydia jailbreak app - it’s not in the Apps Store either), or any other app that distributes song, TV, or movie downloads or podcasts.
One can complain that Apple is not handing its platform over to third party developer control again, something that worked out disastrously on the original Macintosh, but it’s simply ignorant to complain that Apple is shooting developers out of the sky without warning.
Other limitations in the SDK expressly forbid:
* using unpublished or private APIs
* installing or launching other executable code (such as plugins)
* writing data outside ‘the Application’s designated container area’
* failing to ‘comply with the Human Interface Guidelines’
* any recorder apps that fail t’o comply with all applicable privacy laws and regulations [...] including but not limited [...] a reasonably conspicuous visual indicator
* illegal use of location services or marketing apps ‘for real time route guidance’, automatic control of vehicles, or life saving purposes
* location based services that do not ‘obtain consent from an individual’ when data is collected or transmitted
* overriding Apple’s warnings and consent panels to secretly use location data without the user’s permission
* using any copyright material without the proper licensing
* ‘contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind’
* ‘contain any malware, malicious or harmful code’
* using FOSS in ways that do not comply with its license, or would subject any part of the SDK to any external licensing terms or restrictions
* when using cellular data, failure to ‘comply with Apple’s best practices and other guidelines on how Applications should access and use the cellular network [...] in Apple’s reasonable judgment excessively use or unduly burden network capacity or bandwidth [...] have Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) functionality [over cellular networks]
Those limits are clearly stated and part of the agreement every developer has to sign off on when joining the iPhone SDK. Most of them protect users in ways Google and Microsoft won’t. Some protect Apple’s image, some protect FOSS, some protect Apple’s cellular partners. There’s very little that can be reasonably attacked, but no iPhone developers can say they weren’t aware of them.
Additionally, to clarify, while Podcaster the SDK app was not accepted into the Apps Store, there is no restriction upon web apps such as Podcaster.fm’s Podcaster 2.0, which can present and stream podcasts. The complaint revolves around a local app that downloads files to the iPhone, a potential restriction of other limitations cited above, including bandwidth on cellular networks.
Misrepresented to Users.
This is a particularly shameful thing for developers in the SDK program to misrepresent, because the restrictions are covered in the program’s SDK are are not supposed to be published publicly. That makes it particularly unfair to create a myth about “Apple persecution” when the developers should have known from the start that the app wouldn’t be accepted, and that they should have obtained “prior written approval” before starting any work.
The developer of Podcaster may not have paid adequate attention to what he was doing, but that’s not Apple’s fault. It appears that he simply doesn’t understand the issue. The Almerica blog complains “Apple Rep says: Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes,” and continued, “I find this a bit strange considering there are numerous apps that duplicate the functionality of other apps. For example, any calculator app is duplicating the functionality of Apples calculator app.”
Does he really not see a difference between replacing the calculator and installing an end run around iTunes for distributing podcasts? Here’s a hint: the calculator isn’t an integral part of the business plan behind the iPod and iPhone, while iTunes is. Should Apple be forced to allow competitors to install competing platforms such as Real Player, Windows Media, Flash, Java, alternative mail readers and web browsers?
That was a primary complaint about Microsoft, which set up a software market for an open API on PCs and then subsequently used its existing monopoly position to increasingly restrict trade across the entire PC market throughout the 90s. Does the same argument apply to Apple, a hardware company which has never positioned the App Store as an unrestricted, open platform, and which does not maintain a monopoly on mobile hardware or software?
Monday, September 15, 2008
Truly Stateless Companies by John Robb
Google has filed patents to create deep sea floating platforms to house its massive data centers. Not only would these "barges" be economical (lower cooling and energy costs), they would be outside tax and enforcement jurisdictions of all nation-states. If this effort is successful, it could result in an effort to rapidly construct offshore facilities (spread out for robustness and built by a multitude of companies). Interestingly, since the core of most multinationals is now software (people are replaceable and/or interchangeable via outsourcing), the shift to offshore locations would make companies nearly invulnerable to state coercion.
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