Technology Obsession

Back in the nineties when I was a rookie in the business, we used to be asked by our managers
"Which technology are good at?"
"C++" I would reply
"Ok, good. I'm going to assign you to a mainframe project" he would say and we used to nod our heads, dive headlong into mainframe sink only to surface and become adept at this new field in a short span of time.
Call it the manager's immense trust in our ability and flexibility or just plain stupidity for taking what now appears to be a gargantuan risk. However, those were very different times in Indian IT space where we used to afford the luxury of time and money to take such risks.
Today, again, is a different world. On one side the pressure to deliver within specific timelines and for a fixed price is tremendous. On the other side, the booming economy has led to rise of sweat shops in every nook and corner that professes the best of breed IT professionals who, if you check will not know the difference between a compiler and an interpreter.
On the other hand what I really find appalling is the belief among today's developers that they must stick to one and only one technology space and they must learn anything and everything in that whether relevant or not.
How else would you explain a .NET developer's obsession with WWF/WCF/SIlverlight/EntityFramework/MVC framework/Enterprise Framework/LINQ all at the same time and yet cannot answer a simple question "when do you think should we choose WCF over simple straight forward web services."
On one hand you cannot fault someone for being loyal to a technology space, one might also argue that these developers go for depth than breadth. Fair enough!
The other problems is that some developers seem to think it is a sin to learn other  technologies or squarely refer to the other technology as the enemy! Now, I don't get that!
I for one definitely believe that technology is just a means to an end. It is just a medium that helps us achieve our end goal. As long as I use the medium that best suits my customer, I don't really care what medium it is.
I wish that developers learn that technology is only a route to the end goal and technology is NOT the end goal as many believe it to be!

iPad style devices will eventually replace netbooks

Everyone is right about their views on iPad.
"I would not touch it with a barge pole" said one
" Who would want to lug this thing around?" asked the other
"It will redefine computing devices even it flops" quipped an analyst.

I believe all of them are right. I believe iPad kind of devices will eventually catch the fancy of those who use netbooks. Time and again we have maintained that netbooks are suitable only for those who wish to use a device for just browsing and light tasks. Its intended target market are those people who do not require a heavy duty processing device just to organize their photographs, movies and a whole bunch of emails which mostly reside on a server these days.
I use a laptop at home and what do I do with it?
i. Browse the web
ii. Store my Photographs
iii. Download music
iv. store my personal documents (bank statements yadda yadda..)
v. work on my personal financing software
vi. photoshop my snaps
vii. Occasionally type letters and print them
viii. Watch movies again ocassionally
ix. Games, online mostly

for a majority of home users who are not "tech savvy", points v,vi may not be applicable and this may be a sizable number of them.
If one were to consider iPad(or a similar) with the above requirements, its hard to dispute that this device actually can do most of the above activities with elan!
Netbooks with their wheezy processors do not fare much better except for the freedom of installing one's choice of browser and media player and perhaps a choice of connector ports it has on offer, netbooks hardly fare better spec wise.
Of course, iPad cannot multi-task and I figure it has to do with 'battery' issues more than anything else. A little compromise on the form factor, enough juice can be had to make this gizmo multitask! But that is for another discussion.

So, it is very likely that a home user will go in for an iPad style of device that they can simply place in a leather bound folder along with a scribbling pad and just insert it in a bookshelf!

Look at the plus points,
i. No Squinting the eye
ii. No booting time
iii. No space requirements
iv. light!
v. No learning curve
vi. Can download /write emails
vii. Can connect over the network using wi-fi (I Hope?????. Not sure if iPhone os will support this., but a ChromeOS could!). A lot rides on this flexibility and could be a deal breaker too!
viii. Can use card slots to copy photos and organize them! (Dont know if iPad has one, but the others that will eventually follow iPad will have these :) )
ix. No Installs and no virus!

Overall, a home user who will otherwise go for a netbook looks like a might good candidate customer for iPad like devices. A few additions and firmwareOS based devices would soon send netbooks to the nearest blackhole!

Coming to eReaders, single function devices have their days numbered unless they innovate on their USP failing which, we have another candidate for the black hole ride!
It would be interesting to watch how Moblin, ChromeOS work with other hardware manufacturers to improve on the bar set by Apple and throw a credible challenger into the market!
We live in good times don't we :)