Back in 1992, after the Berlin Wall fell and communist states were toppled one after another, Francis Fukuyama authored and published a book entitled The End of History and The Last Man.  It received much press at the time for its bold and seemingly definitive statement (specifically that whole ‘end of history’ thing with the thesis that capitalist liberal democracy is that endpoint). The result was much press, discussion, discourse and theorizing and presumably a higher sales volume for a book that likely still graces many a bookshelf, binding still uncracked.  Now it’s my turn to be bold.

Here it is:

With the advent and popularization of the smartphone, we are now at the end of custom personal consumer hardware.

That’s it.  THE END OF HARDWARE.  Sure there will be form factor changes and maybe a few additional new hardware features but all of these changes will be incorporated in smartphone handsets as that platform.

Maybe I’m exaggerating – but only a little.  Really, there’s not much more room for hardware innovation in the smartphone platform and as it is currently deployed, it contains the building blocks of any custom personal consumer device. Efforts are clearly being directed at gadgets to replace those cell phones.  That might be smart watches, wearable computers, tablets or even phablets. But these are really just changes in form not function.  Much like the evolution of the PC, it appears that mobile hardware has reached the point where the added value of hardware has become incremental and less valuable.  The true innovation is in the manner in which software can be used to connect resources and increase the actual or perceived power that platform.

In the PC world, faster and faster microprocessors were of marginal utility to the great majority of end-users who merely used their PCs for reading email or doing PowerPoint.  Bloated applications (of the sort that the folks at Microsoft seem so pleased to develop and distribute) didn’t even benefit from faster processors as much as they did from cheaper memory and faster internet connections.  And now, we may be approaching that same place for mobile applications.  The value of some of these applications is becoming limited more by the availability of on-device resources like memory and faster internet connections through the cell provider rather than the actual hardware features of the handset.  Newer applications are more and more dependent on big data and other cloud-based resources.  The handset is merely a window into those data sets.  A presentation layer, if you will.  Other applications use the information collected locally from the device’s sensors and hardware peripherals (geographical location, speed, direction, scanned images, sounds, etc.) in concert with cloud-based big data to provide services, entertainment and utilities.

In addition, and more significantly, we are seeing developing smartphone applications that use the phone’s peripherals to directly interface to other local hardware (like PCs, projectors, RC toys,  headsets, etc.) to extend the functionality of those products.  Why buy a presentation remote when you get an app? Why buy a remote for your TV when you can get an app? Why buy a camera when you already have one on your phone? A compass? A flashlight? A GPS? An exercise monitor?

Any consumer-targeted handheld device need no longer develop an independent hardware platform.  You just develop an app to use the features of the handset that you need and deploy the app.  Perhaps additional special purpose sensor packs might be needed to augment the capabilities of the smartphone for specialized uses but any mass-market application can be fully realized using the handset as the existing base and few hours of coding.

And if you doubt that handset hardware development has plateaued  then consider the evolution of the Samsung Galaxy S3 to the Samsung Galaxy S4.  The key difference between the two devices is the processor capabilities and the camera resolution.  The bulk of the innovations are pure software related and could have been implemented as part of the Samsung Galaxy S3 itself without really modifying the hardware.  The differences between the iPhone 4s and the iPhone 5s were a faster processor, a better camera and a fingerprint sensor.  Judging from a completely unscientific survey of end-users that I know, the fingerprint sensor remains unused by most owners. An innovation that has no perceived value.

The economics of this thesis is clear.  If a consumer has already spent $600 or so on a smartphone and lives most of their life on it anyway and carries it with them everywhere, are you going to have better luck selling them a new gadget for $50-$250 (that they have to order, wait for learn how to use, get comfortable with and then carry around) or an app that they can buy for $2 and download and use in seconds – when they need it?

Let me start by being perfectly clear.  I don’t have Google Glass.  I’ve never seen a pair live.  I’ve never held or used the device.  So basically, I just have strong opinions based on what I have read and seen.  And, of course, the way I have understood what I have read and seen.  Sergei Brin recently did a TED talk about Google Glass during which, after sharing a glitzy, well-produced video commercial for the product, he maintained that they developed Google Glass because burying your head in a smartphone was rude and anti-social.  Presumably staring off into the projected images produced by Google Glass but still avoiding eye-contact and real human interaction is somehow less rude and less anti-social.  But let that alone for now.

The “what’s in it for me” of Google Glass is the illusion of intelligence (or at least the ability to instantly access facts), Internet-based real-time social sharing, real-time scrapbooking and interactive memo taking amongst other Dick Tracy-like functions.

What’s in it for Google is obvious.  At its heart, Google is an advertising company – well – more of an advertising distribution company.  They are a platform for serving up advertisements for all manner of products and services.  Their ads are more valuable if they can directly target people with ads for products or services at a time and place when the confluence of the advertisement and the reality yield a situation in which the person is almost compelled to purchase what is on offer because it is exactly what they want when they want it.  This level of targeting is enhanced when they know what you like (Google+, Google Photos (formerly Picasa)), how much money you have (Google Wallet), where you are (Android), what you already have (Google Shopping), what you may be thinking (GMail), who you are with (Android) and what your friends and neighbors have and think (all of the aforementioned).  Google Glass, by recording location data, images, registering your likes and other purchases can work to build and enhance such a personal database.  Even if you choose to anonymize yourself and force Google to de-personalize your data, their guesses may be less accurate but they will still know about you as a demographic group (male, aged 30-34, lives in zip code 95123, etc.) and perhaps general information based on your locale and places you visit and where you might be at any time.  So, I immediately see the value of Google Glass for Google and Google’s advertising customers but see less value in its everyday use by ordinary folks unless they seek to be perceived as cold, anti-social savants who may possibly be on the Autistic Spectrum.

I don’t want to predict that Google Glass will be a marketplace disaster but the value statement for it appears to be limited.  A lot of the capabilities touted for it are already on your smartphone or soon to be released for it.  There is talk of image scanning applications that immediately bring up information about whatever it is that you’re looking at.  Well, Google’s own Goggles is an existing platform for that and it works on a standard mobile phone.  In fact, all of the applications touted thus far for Google Glass rely on some sort of visual analysis or geolocation-based look-up that is equally applicable to anything with a camera. It seems to me that the “gotta have the latest gadget” gang will flock to Google Glass as they always do to these devices but appealing to the general public may be a more difficult task.  Who really wants to wear their phone on their face?  If the benefit of Google Glass is its wearability then maybe Apple’s much-rumored iWatch is a less intrusive and less nerdy looking alternative.  Maybe Apple still better understands what people really want when it comes to mobile connectivity.

Ultimately, Google Glass may be a blockbuster hit or just an interesting (but expensive) experiment.  We’ll find out by the end of the year.

It’s all the rage right now to be viewed as a leader in the mobile space.  There are many different sectors in which to demonstrate your leadership.  There are operating systems like iOS and Android and maybe even Windows Phone (someday).  There’s hardware like Apple, Samsung, HTC and maybe even Nokia.  And of course there’s the applications like FourSquare, Square and other primarily mobile applications in social, payments, health and gaming and then all the other applications rushing to mobile because they were told that’s where they ought to be.

Somewhere in this broad and vague classification is Facebook (or perhaps more properly “facebook”).  This massive database of human foibles and interests is either being pressed or voluntarily exploring just exactly how to enter the mobile space and presumably dominate it.  Apparently they have made several attempts to develop their own handset.  The biggest issue it seems is that they believed that just because they are a bunch of really smart folks they should be able to stitch a phone together and make it work.  I believe the saying is “too smart by half“.  And since they reportedly tried this several times without success – perhaps they were also “too stubborn by several halves”.

This push by facebook begs the question: “What?” or even “Why?”  There is a certain logic to it.  Facebook provides hours of amusement to tens of millions of active users and the developers at facebook build applications to run on a series of mobile platforms already.  Those applications are limited in their ability to provide a full facebook experience and also limit facebook’s ability to extract revenue from these users.  Though when you step back, you quickly realize that facebook is really a platform.  It has messaging (text, voice and video), it has contact information, it has position and location information, it has your personal profile along with your interest history and friends, it knows what motivates you (by your comment contents and what you “like”) and it is a platform for application development (including games and exciting virus and spam possibilities) with a well-defined and documented interface.  At the 10,000 foot level, it seems like facebook is an operating system and a platform ready-to-go.  This is not too different from the vision that propelled Netscape into Microsoft’s sights leading to their ultimate demise. Microsoft doesn’t have the might it once did but Google does and so does Apple.  Neither may be “evil” but both are known to be ruthless.  For facebook to enter this hostile market with yet another platform would be bold. And for that company to be one whose stock price and perceived confidence is faltering after a shaky IPO – it may also be dumb. But it may be the only and necessary option for growth.

On the other hand, facebook’s recent edict imploring all employees to access facebook from Android phones rather than their iPhones could either suggest that the elders at facebook believe their future is in Android or simply that they recognize that it is a growing and highly utilized platform. Maybe they will ditch the phone handset and go all in for mobile on iOS and Android on equal footing.

Personally, I think that a new platform with a facebook-centric interface might be a really interesting product especially if the equipment cost is nothing to the end-user.  A free phone supported by facebook ads, running all your favorite games, with constant chatter and photos from your friends? Talk about an immersive communications experience. It would drive me batty. But I think it would be a huge hit with a certain demographic. And how could they do this given their previous failures? Amongst the weaker players in the handset space, Nokia has teamed up with Microsoft but RIM continues to flail. Their stock is plummeting but they have a ready-to-go team of smart employees with experience in getting once popular products to market as well as that all-important experience in dealing with the assorted wireless companies to say nothing of the treasure trove of patents they hold. They also have some interesting infrastructure in their SRP network that could be exploited by facebook to improve their service (or, after proper consideration, sold off).

You can’t help but wonder that if instead of spending $1B on Instagram prior to its IPO, facebook had instead spent a little more and bought RIM would the outcome and IPO lauch have been different?  I guess I can only speculate about that.  Now, though, it seems that facebook ought to move soon or be damned to be a once great player who squandered their potential.