Centralizing or decentralizing? What's happening now?

One might be confused with the direction of today's PC technologies. Are they becoming more distributed or are they becoming more centralized?

There are two large-scale changes in today's technologies. Depending on which you look at, you will see the trend for distributed control or the trend for centralized control. (Kind of like those optical illusions of stairs that go up, or down, depending on your visual perception.)

The distribution of PC applications are becoming centralized: Apple's business model is centralized. Applications for iPhones, iPods, and iPads are distributed through iTunes and through iTunes only. This is very different from the approach used by Microsoft for PC-DOS and Windows applications, in which anyone could write and distribute an application, and anyone could purchase and install an application (provided they had administrator privileges) without any involvement or supervision from Microsoft. Apple has complete control over iTunes and one can distribute an iPad/iPhone/iPod app only with Apple's permission.

Apple has declared intentions to move the Mac world from the "open distributor" model to an "Apple centric" model with the "App Store". Indeed, applications that use iCloud must be distributed within the App Store. Applications distributed via the "open distributor" model cannot use iCloud services.

Microsoft is considering to closed distribution model with Windows 8 and the Metro environment.

The selection and ownership of PCs are becoming decentralized: The "bring your own device" fad (for now, let us call it a fad) shifts the ownership of PCs from employers to employees. The previous model saw employers specifying, providing, and provisioning PCs for workers. Often a company would have a standard configuration of hardware and software, issued to all employees. A standard configuration reduced support costs, since there was one (or a limited number) of hardware and software combinations.

With the "bring your own device" fad, employees pick the device, employees own the device, and employees provision and maintain the device. One person may pick a Windows laptop PC, another may pick a MacBook, and a third may pick a Linux tablet. This is clearly a decentralization of decisions -- although the employer retains decisions for the development of company-specific applications. An employer may develop custom software for their employees and build it for one or a limited number of platforms. (Such as custom software for insurance adjusters that runs only on iPads. You can be sure that insurance adjusters at that company will select iPads.)

The two shifts are symptoms of larger changes: Software is becoming a commodity, with the important packages running on multiple platforms (or equivalents running on different platforms). Second, power is shifting from PC customers (large user corporations) to PC platform manufacturers (Apple, Google, Microsoft).

Software is a commodity, and the different packages offer no compelling advantages. For word processors, Microsoft Office is just as good as Libre Office. And Libre Office is just as good as Microsoft Office. In the past, Microsoft Office did offer compelling advantages: it ran on Windows, it ran efficiently and reliably, and it used proprietary formats that demanded that new uses have the same software. Those advantages have disappeared, for various reasons.

Software is a commodity, and current products are "good enough". There is little to be gained by adding new features to a word processor, to a spreadsheet, to an e-mail/calendar application. I may sound a little like the "we don't need a patent office because we have invented everything" argument, but bear with me.

The core packages used to run offices (word processors, spreadsheets, e-mail, calendars, presentation, etc.) are good enough, the data is interchangeable (or convertable), and the user interfaces are easy enough to understand.

If we need additional functionality in an office, a company will get it (either by building it or buying it). But they will do so with extra software, not through extensions to the core packages. (The one possible exception might be spreadsheet macros.) The core office software are commodities.

Apple knows this. It spends no effort building its own version of office tools. I suspect that Microsoft understands this too, and is preparing for the day when lots of customers move away from Microsoft Office.

Apple and Microsoft are building new mechanisms to extract value from their customers: walled gardens in which they are the gatekeepers. The application software will be less important and the walls around the garden will be more important. Apple uses its iTunes as a tollbooth, extracting a percentage of every sale. I expect Microsoft to do the same.

What this means for "the rest of us" (individuals, user companies, developers, etc.) remains to be seen.