The PC Reverse Cambrian Explosion

The Cambrian Explosion is a term from archaeology. It describes a massive increase in the diversity of life that occurred half a billion of years ago. Life on earth went from a measly few thousands of species to hundreds of millions of species in the blink of a geologic eye.

Personal Computers have what I call a "PC Reverse Cambrian Explosion" or PC-RCE. It occurred in the mid-1980s, which some might consider to be half a billion year ago. In the PC-RCE, computers went from hundreds of different designs to one: the IBM PC compatible.

In the late 1970s and very early 1980s, there were lots of designs for small computers. These included the Apple II, the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Commodore PET and CBM machines, and others. There was a great diversity of hardware and software, including processors and operating systems. Some computers had floppy disks, although most did not. Many computers used cassette tape for storage, and some had neither cassette nor floppy disk. Some computers had built-in displays, and others required that you get your own terminal.

By the mid 1980s, that diversity was gone. The IBM PC was the winning design, and the market wanted that design and only that design. (Except for a few stubborn holdouts.)

One might think that the IBM PC caused the PC-RCE, but I think it was something else.

While the IBM PC was popular, other manufacturers could not simply start making compatible machines (or "clones" as they were later called). The hardware for the IBM PC was "open" in that the connectors and buss specification were documented, and this allowed manufacturers to make accessories for IBM PCs. But the software (the operating system and importantly the ROM BIOS) was not open. While both had documentation for the interfaces, they could not be copied without running afoul of copyright law.

Other computer manufacturers could not make IBM PC clones. Their choices were limited to 1) sell non-compatible PCs in a market and did not want them, or 2) go into another business.

Yet we now have many vendors of PCs. What happened?

The first part of the PC-RCE was the weakening of the non-IBM manufacturers. Most went out of business. (Apple survived, by offering compelling alternate designs and focussing on the education market.)

The second part was Microsoft's ability to sell MS-DOS to other manufacturers. It made custom versions for non-compatible hardware by Tandy, Victor, Zenith, and others. While "compatible with MS-DOS" wasn't the same as "compatible with the IBM PC", it allowed other manufacturers to use MS-DOS.

A near-empty market allowed upstart Compaq to introduce its Compaq portable, which was the first system not made by IBM and yet compatible with the IBM PC. It showed that there was a way to build IBM PC "compatibles" legally and profitably. Compaq was successful because it offered a product not available from IBM (a portable computer) that was also compatible (it ran popular software) and used premium components and designs to justify a hefty price tag. (Several thousand dollars at the time.)

The final piece was the Phoenix BIOS. This was the technology that allowed other manufacturers to build compatible PCs at low prices. Compaq had built their own BIOS, making it compatible with the API specified in IBM's documents, but it was an expensive investment. The Phoenix BIOS was available to all manufacturers, which let Phoenix amortize the cost over a larger number of PCs, for a lower per-unit cost.

The market maintained demand for the IBM PC design, but it wasn't fussy about the manufacturer. Customers bought "IBM compatible PCs" with delight. (Especially if the price was lower than IBM's.)

Those events (weakened suppliers, an operating system, a legal path forward, and the technology to execute it) made the PC the one and only design, and killed off the remaining designs. (Again, except for Apple. And Apple came close to extinction on several occasions.)

Now, this is all nice history, but what does it have to do with us folks living today?

The PC-RCE gave us a single design for PCs. That design has evolved over the decades, and just about every piece of the original IBM PC has mutated into something else, but the marketed PCs have remained uniform. At first, IBM specified the design, with the IBM PC, the IBM PC XT, and the IBM PC AT. Later, Microsoft specified the design with its "platform specification" for Windows. Microsoft could do this, due to its dominance of the market for operating systems and office software.

Today, the PC design is governed by various committees and standards organizations. They specify the design for things like the BIOS (or its replacement the UEFI), the power supply, and connectors for accessories. Individual companies have sway; Intel designs processors and support circuitry used in all PCs. Together, these organizations provide a single design which allows for modest variation among manufacturers.

That uniformity is starting to fracture.

Apple's computers joined the PC design in the mid-2000s. The "white MacBook" with an Intel processor was a PC design -- so much so that Windows and Linux can run on it. Yet today, Apple is moving their Macs and MacBooks in a direction different from the mainstream market. Apple-designed chips control certain parts of their computers, and these chips are not provided to other manufacturers. (Apple's iPhones and iPads are unique designs, with no connection to the PC design.)

Google is designing its Chromebooks and slowing moving them away from the "standard" PC design.

Microsoft is building Surface tablets and laptops with its proprietary designs, close to PCs yet not quite identical.

We are approaching a time when we won't think of PCs as completely interchangeable. Instead, we will think of them in terms of manufacturers: Apple PCs, Microsoft PCs, Google PCs, etc. There will still be a mainstream design; Dell and Lenovo and HP want to sell PCs.

The "design your own PC" game is for serious players. It requires a significant investment not only in hardware design but also in software. Apple has been playing that game all along. Microsoft and Google are big enough that they can join. Other companies may get involved, using Linux (or NetBSD as Apple did) as a base for their operating systems.

The market for PCs is fragmenting. In the future, I see a modest number of designs, not the thousands that we had in 1980. The designs will be similar but not identical, and more importantly, not compatible - at least for hardware.

A future with multiple hardware platforms will be a very different place. We have enjoyed a single (evolving) platform for the past four decades. A world with multiple, incompatible platforms will be a new experience for many. It will affect not only hardware designers, but everyone involved with PCs, from programmers to network administrators to purchasing agents. Software may follow the fragmentation, and we could see applications that run on one platform and not others.

A fragmented market will hold challenges. Once committed to one platform, it is hard to move to a different platform. (Just as it is difficult today to move from one operating system to another.) Instead of just the operating system, one will have to change the hardware, operating system, and possibly applications.

It may also be a challenge for Linux and open source software. They have used the common platform as a means of expansion. Will we see specific versions of Linux for specific platforms? Will Linux avoid some platforms as "too difficult" to implement? (The Apple MacBooks, with their extra chips for security, may be a challenge for Linux.)

The fragmentation I describe is a possible future -- its not here today. I wouldn't panic, but I wouldn't ignore it, either. Keep buying PCs, but keep your eyes on them.

The Surface RT needs fanboys

The response to Microsoft's Surface tablets has been less than enthusiastic. Various people have speculated on reasons. Some blame the technology, others blame the price. I look at the Surface from a market viewpoint.

I start by asking the question: Who would want a Surface?

Before I get very far, I ask another question: What are the groups who would want (or not want) a Surface tablet?

I divide the market into three groups: the fanboys, the haters, and the pragmatists.

The Microsoft fans are the people who dig in to anything that Microsoft produces. They would buy a Surface (and probably already have).

Fanboy groups are not limited to Microsoft. There are fanboys for Apple. There are fanboys for Linux (and Android, and Blackberry...).

Just as there are fans for each of the major vendors, there are also the haters. There is the "Anyone But Microsoft" crowd. They will not be buying the Surface. If anything, they will go out of their way to buy another product. (There are also "Anyone But Apple" and "Anything But Linux" crowds, too.)

In between these groups are the pragmatists. They buy technology not because they like it but because it works, it is popular, and it is low-risk. For desktops and servers, they have purchased Microsoft technologies over other technologies -- by large margins.

The pragmatists are the majority. The fanboys and the haters are fringe groups. Vocal, perhaps, but small populations within the larger set.

It was not always this way.

In the pre-PC days, people were fanboys for hardware: the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Apple II, the Commodore 64... even the Timex Sinclair had fans. Microsoft was hardware-neutral: Microsoft BASIC ran on just about everything. Microsoft was part of the "rebel alliance" against big, expensive mainframe computers.

This loyalty continued in the PC-DOS era. With the PC, the empire of IBM was clearly present in the market. Microsoft was still viewed as "on our side".

Things changed with Windows and Microsoft's expansion into the software market. After Microsoft split Windows from OS/2 and started developing primary applications for Windows, it was Microsoft that became the empire. Microsoft's grinding competition destroyed Digital Research, Borland, Wordperfect, Netscape, and countless other companies -- and we saw Microsoft as the new evil. Microsoft was no longer one of "us".

Fanboys care if a vendor is one of "us"; pragmatists don't. Microsoft worked very hard to please the pragmatists, focussing on enterprise software and corporate customers. The result was that the pragmatist market share increased at the expense of the fanboys. (The "Anyone But Microsoft" crowd picked up some share, too.)

Over the years the pragmatists have served Microsoft well. Microsoft dominated the desktop market and had a large share of the server market. While Microsoft danced with the pragmatists, the fanboys migrated to other markets: Blackberry, Apple, Linux. Talk with Microsoft users and they generally fall into three categories: people who pick Microsoft products for corporate use, people who use Microsoft products because the job forces them to, or people who use Microsoft products at home because that is what came with the computer. Very few people go out of their way to purchase Microsoft products. (No one is erasing Linux and installing Windows.)

Microsoft's market base is pragmatists.

Pragmatists are a problem for Microsoft: they are only weakly loyal. Pragmatists are, well, pragmatic. They don't buy a vendors technology because they like the vendor. They buy technology to achieve specific goals (perhaps running a company). They tend to follow the herd and buy what other folks buy. The herd is not buying Surface tablets, especially Surface RT tablets.

Microsoft destroyed the fanboy market base. Or perhaps I should say "their fanboy market base", as Apple has retained (and grown) theirs.

Without a sufficiently large set of people willing to take chances with new technologies, a vendor is condemned to their existing product designs (or mild changes).

For Microsoft to sell tablets, they need fanboys.

Forced transitions can work

Technology changes over time. Manufacturers introduce new versions of products, and sometimes introduce radically new products. When a manufacturer introduces a radically new product and discontinues the old product, its customers must make a decision: do the move to the new product or do they stay with the old? This is a forced transition, as it is often impractical to stay with the old product. (New copies or licenses are not available, replacement parts are not available, and support is not available.)

Forced transitions can sometimes succeed:

• IBM transitioned customers from their early 704 and 1401 processors to the System/360 processors, and later the System/370 processors.
• DEC transitioned customers from the PDP-11 line to the VAX processor line.
• Microsoft transitioned customers from DOS to Windows, then to Windows NT, and then to .NET.
• Apple transitioned customers from the Macintosh computers with Motorola processors to PowerPC processors, then to Intel processors.
• Apple transitioned the Mac operating system from the original version to OSX.

Forced transitions do not always succeed:

• IBM failed to convince customers to move from the IBM PC to the IBM PS/2.
• DEC failed to convince customers to move from the VAX to the Alpha processor.

Now, Microsoft is looking to transition its desktop to the new model used by tablets and smartphones. (I call it "tap and swipe", since many of the actions are initiated by taps or swipes of the touchscreen.) Microsoft's vision is present in the Windows 8 "Metro" interface. The computing experience is quite different from classic Windows.

Will they succeed?

Microsoft has a lot going for it. They are big and have a commanding presence in the software market. Switching from Windows-based products to alternatives on other platforms is expensive, involving the acquisition of the software, conversion of data, and training of users. Specialized software may be unavailable on platforms other than Windows.

Microsoft also has a lot against its success at the transition. Users are familiar with the current Windows interface and the current tools. The Metro UI brings a very different experience to the desktop and to computing (well, it moves Windows into the realm of iPhones and Android tablets). There will be a lot of resistance to change.

I think Microsoft will succeed, because users have no where else to go. When IBM introduced the PS/2, users had the options of buying IBM PC clones -- and they exercised those options. When DEC introduced the Alpha processor, users had the options of moving to workstations from other vendors -- and they did.

The transition to Windows 8 and Metro forces people to adopt the new interface, but they have no option to replace Windows 7. Changing to Mac OSX will lead to a similar GUI change (I expect future versions of OSX to look more and more like iOS). Changing to Linux creates significant challenges for education and software replacements.

I *do* expect that some shops will move away from Windows. If they have no software that is specific to Windows, if their software is readily available on other platforms, they could move to those other platforms. Some will move to Linux and the LibreOffice suite of tools. Others will move to web-based and cloud-based services like Google Docs and Zoho documents. But I expect these to be a small number of customers. The majority of customers will shift, perhaps unwillingly, to Windows 8.