True, the arguement is valid to a certain extent, but it neglects a line of argument that social conservatives often use in other contexts - the slippery slope. The Patriot Act erodes the standards of what constitutes due process and legal rights. In itself, it may only move the line of what constitutes appropriate action on the part of the government marginally, but over time, such incremental changes can have unintended consequences such that it no longer requires a corrupt government to trample on the civil rights of some or all Americans because the definition of what those rights are can be so changed that what was once considered trampling on rights becomes an accepted norm. If pre-emption was a good enough reason to invade Iraq, it is a good enough reason to act to protect civil rights.
But as it turned out, one of the lessons to be drawn from this is that people don't actually want to put up with ads. In a world where even the likes of AOL tout their pop-up blocking features, it is safe to say that pushing ads onto a desktop just wont't fly. What you will get by having your desktop search utility on people's computers is probably limited to having your logo in their face. Oh, and given the choice that users will have in search utilities, chances are that trust, if not loyalty, will play a role in who people "invite" onto their computers. Having a lock on desktop search will probably be linked to having a lock on web search - and that is where the money will continue to be made.
So it's embarassing that it doesn't work and the controversy about the program remains - but when has the current administration ever let controversy about what it wants to do get in its way? In context of the current administration, a reliability issue that does not likely require substantial technical development is not a "serious" setback, certainly not something that might jeopardize the program. A possible delay in activating the system is a minor embarassment at worst - it is not as if the deadline was responding to real world conditions. At any rate, who's to say that the system won't be declared "active" anyway. It wouldn't be the first time that political requirements rather than hard data have driven policy.
While the subject of whether or not a missile defense system is practicable is debatable (i.e. a worthy subject of discussion with arguments to be heard on both sides), I do not propose to join it at this point. However, having RTFA, I can't help but wonder at the characterization of the failure as a "serious" setback. The missle shut itself down. Maybe it was a software failure, maybe it was a hardware failure. In either case, while a lot of work may have to go into searching for and fixing the problem, it is not a huge technical challenge - the technology exists to get a missle to launch and do so reliably and with high confidence (why else would you even need such a system). A serious setback would have been if the system had launched and missed the target by a wide margin or been unable even to track the target. The technical challange is tracking and intercepting the target, launching a missle is not. This was a bug or a screw-up at most.
Computers are still very much at the point where they are tools that require skilled operation depending on what you want to do.
I too agree and disagree. You have, for example, hit the nail on the head here. Computers and their related technologies do still require skilled operation, but that is not how or where they are being sold. The skilled/interested user is most likely to be found among early adopters and to a lesser extent parts of "early majority" sections of the classic sigmoid diffusion function that desribes the uptake of an innovation in market/population. The diffusion of computers is way beyond that now. In most developed economies we are looking "late majority" adopters and "laggards" getting online as prices come down, services like AOL and MSN promote themselves as easy to use and things like email become embedded in everyone's life. So, the technology is being marketed as safe and easy when it is not, and people who reasonably enough are not interested in how things work are getting their hands on it.
Part of the problem, to extend your automotive analogy, is that even if all users should not reasonably be expected to be able to "change their own oil", they do have to know how to drive, including how to avoid getting into a traffic accident, and ideally, be able to put gas/petrol into the car and at least recognize that when an "idiot light" comes on, to take appropriate action. So what do you do? Insist on "driving tests" for computer purchasers? (Right, explain to my dad how buying a PC should be different than buying a TV...) Have everything pre-installed, including the "idiot lights" (And in a cut-throat commodity business, who is going to pay, and should I have to pay for such a loaded box too?)
You are right in pointing out that users often come to technologies with naive assumptions about what they can do or how easily they can do it, but if they do, it is because they are being told this in the advertising. And just like a product such as IE or any other browser should be provided as a well designed secure product, either advertising has to set reasonable expectations, or manufacturers should actually supply easy to use technologies. Personally, I'm not holding my breadth waiting for either to become the norm.
The "average" computer user is a lazy, uninformed moron
With repect - and a great deal of sympathy (if not outright agreement, at least when I am trying fix something on a friend/relative's computer) I think that we should get away from this kind of mindset with respect to the "average" computer user. The average computer user is not interested in how things work, only that things should work and that they can use what ever piece of technology for the purpose they need it for. This extends beyond IT, to everything from plumbing, electricity, cars, furnaces, etc. Anything beyond basic operating and maintenance procedures gets in the way of use and should ordinarily be outside the domain of the "average" user. The problem lies with technologies and products (e.g. IE) that are poorly designed and therefore require more expertise from the average user than is appropriate.
Sure it's easy to get frustrated with "average" users, but they should not have to be interested in how things work. Don't be so gloomy, there are worse things than being in a position to help a fellow human being with a problem.
... um... exactly... they are not "scared", they are acting proactively to prevent things from becoming "scary". As you say, they are responding to an as yet (they hope) containable threat to their business, not something that they are necessarily "scared" of now.
I don't know if "scared" is the word - it might be more accurate to say that MS recognizes Linux as a serious and viable competitor. That itself is pretty strong valildation. I don't imagine that MS will actually be "scared" until Wall Street analysts start to make reference to Linux as a major contributor to declining MS earnings.
... interesting - I can see why the US government may want to regulate US citizens anywhere in the world. Do you have any idea about how far down the supply chain this kind of regulatory authority might extend - design, manufacturing, servicing, marketing, operations etc. Would Americans working as suppliers to the ultimate provider of the service give the US government regulatory authority?
Given the price of these trips, I doubt that the added cost of having to fly to another country is going to significantly impact on customers' willingness to buy the service.
For those interested, the current issue of The Economist has an article on voting technology. It does not, of course, discuss this latest development, but gives a good overview of the area, with a great deal of attention given to the issue of paper, paper trails, and making the whole system more transparent.
... with all due respect, you are missing something. It may seem trivial, but there is quite a bit of difference between a requirement to show ID where the regulations authorizing the demand are public, and a requirement for which the regulations authorizing the demand are secret. You are quite correct that it is reasonable for authorities and service providers to request verification of identity in some circumstances, however, in a democracy, it is also reasonable that the laws and regulations that are enacted on behalf of the people are made known to the people.
Also, your logic in the case of the hypothetical teen needs to be re-examined, a teen's claim on his/her own behalf is not the same as an anonymous third party's (presumably with some credentials to make the call) certification of fitness to operate a motor vehicle.
Having lived in four countries over the past 12 years, I agree with your earlier comment to the effect that no single country has got everything right. With reference to your comments about the Federal Reserve (and similar central banking institutions in other countries), however, I have have to disagree. There is a tremendous amount of difference between the influence of the Fed and the power of central planners in a command economy (the term economists sometimes use to describe systems such as those of the former Soviet Union etc.) The key word is "command" - the Fed does not make anyone do anything. They alter the the parameters within which business and individuals make their decisions on the expectation that outcomes will move in one direction rather than an other. They do not dictate behavior or otherwise tell those who control economic resources how they should use those resources.
Dispite disagreeing with this part of the argument, I do agree with you on the link between authoritarian government, corruption and almost inevitable collapse (or stagnation).
The OECD guidelines for the use and handling of personal information issued in 1980, while not part of US law are a pretty good minimum standard to apply to any privacy and informatiom handling issue. Unless there is an Act of Congress that gives this the go-ahead (which is not mentioned in the article) this decision on what to do with information collected at the Statue of Liberty pretty much trashes the following principles:
Purpose Specification Principle: The purposes for which personal data are collected should be specified not later than at the time of collection and the subsequent use limited to the fulfilment of those purposes or such others as are not incompatible with those purposes and as are specified on each occasion of change of purpose.
Use Limitation Principle: Personal data should not be disclosed, made available or otherwise used for purposes other than those specified in accordance with th ePurpose Specification Principle except: with the consent of the data subject; or by the authority of law.
Even without comparing the digital divide with bigger issues, it seems to me that there are problems with the whole concept itself. The idea of a digital divided appears to have an underlying assumption that poor people - regardless of where they live - are poor because they do not have access to information in general and the Internet in particular. While this is unquestionably a symptom of poverty - I am not sure that this is the biggest structural hurdle that has to be overcome in order to provide equal opportunity for all. It sounds great but what will it actually do for most people?
Of course word for word reproduction is prohibited by journals. That's not versioning, that's reproducing. And, of course, they want first crack at major announcements. Nevertheless, the demands of journals should not necessarily preclude different versions being made public after - or in some cases before - the main journal article is published. Interim/prelinary reports, reports/summaries to funding bodies, conference presentations, and the like differ substantially from the level of detail and presentation of a journal article. While some journals won't want material presented at conferences - and few conferences would want material that had already appeared in the main journals, I have never been presented with a demand from either a journal or a conference that the material (as opposed to the specific presentation of the material) never be presented anywhere else, ever again. It is, therefore, not uncommon for material to appear in different versions through time: a write up of results and findings to the funder, a summary of results (possibly interim or preliminary) at a conference, later the main journal article comes out, later still it might be expanded into a book or reworked into a chapter etc. Even if the researcher delayed making a summary of the material available to the public until after the journal article had been published, its form and content could differ substantially from what the journal was selling. Indeed, given the tendency of researchers to prefer moving on to new projects than completely reworking their old material, any such public summaries that might be mandated in funding agreements would probably be closer to the preliminary summaries for funders or conferences than to the more refined elaborations published in journals.
It seems to me that these two are unrelated. The journals are certainly free to charge whatever they want, and given that the circulation of these journals is tiny it's understandable that they aren't going to be cheap. Since digital archiving is a bit questionable libraries of course want paper.
The funding by govenment grants is all fine and good, but last I looked that funding went to the researchers, not the journals.
What about versioning? While academics have career needs to get their research into the most prestigious (and often expensive) journals, there is nothing to prevent them from distrubuting the results in other formats and other venues. It is not, for example, unusual for the same research to given to a conference, published in conference proceedings, published as a journal article and even as a chapter in a book at some point. If there were to be a requirement that some version of the research report be made available - it would not have to be the version that appeared in the pricey journal - then the public would have access to federally funded research. No doubt the journals would complain about this, but there would still be room for them in the market as aggregators, vettors (in the form of peer review) and publicists - finding material in a journal would still be simpler than trawling through the websites of every researcher and research center to see what they have done with public money. The funding providers could, of course, aggregate the results of work that they fund - and perhaps they ought to. While this could be seen as an even greater threat to the journals, they would still have the validating function of the peer review process to offer some potential to add value to their research oriented customers. All in all, this is yet another example of old content distrubtion models have to face new realities.
For what it is worth, you can tell what dairy the milk came from by looking at the dairy identifier, usually printed with the sell-by date. We buy store brand milk - from dairy plant 25-100 - which comes from the same plant as one of the "premium brand" milks here in the Boston area, but costs considerably less.
... and how about letting cable providers into the telephony side of things like they do in the UK? That would give the consumer a choice in both who provides the service and who provides the line. Then separate the service areas that each company offers and allow competition in all areas.
Very interesting stuff - could I ask where the data is from. I don't mean to question it, I would just be interested in knowing where you got your numbers.
For what it is worth, "friction" is economics jargon for anything that prevents markets from allocating resources with the perfect efficiency usually assumed in basic economic theory. Barriers to entry are one source of friction, but anything from information assymmetries, to transaction costs, transportation costs, etc. etc. all contribute to "friction". Part of the hyperbole of the late 90s was that information technology would enable "friction free markets" - but while it did reduce a lot of sources of friction in some markets, it created new forms in the guise of information overload, complexity due to choice proliferation, uncertainty from the speed that products and services became obsolete etc., etc.
Lock-in and switching costs are another aspect of the purchase decision that are worth considering. Whenever you buy a new system of any sort, there are costs to switching from whatever you are using now and risks of being locked-in to the vendor that can increases the buyer's long-term costs. While your company wants to make money down the line with service and support, by going the open source route, your company would be reducing the buyers' future lock-in costs (and therefore current switching costs) which should increase current sales. It creates the relationships on which to build the future support business. Sure with open source there is less certainty that they will go with you for support, but your foot is in the door and if your products and support are good enough, the relationship should be strong enough to win that future business.
IR is already in widespread use, supported by many phones and most PDAs, and very cheap.
Very cheap - good point. And something not mentioned in the article. What would really drive the adoption of RFID - and make available the advantages of the technology that are mentioned elsewhere (i.e. RFID tags would be much cheaper and smaller.) would be announcement of the worlds CHEAPEST RFID reader. That would be news. Sure, the price of anything will come down with volume, and volume comes with widespread adoption, but to speed up the rate at which this technology gets adopted - and have super-small readers embedded in all kinds of devices - not only do the tags have to come down in cost, but the readers will have to be cheaper too. Is there something about how they put this together that will, all other things being equal, give this a cost advantage over other ways of putting readers together?
Oh, and to be able to compare, does anyone know anything about the cost of a typical IR reader of the type used in phones, PDAs and laptops? How about the cost of other RFID readers? While I am sure that device manufacturers are assuming that the costs will be or become equal, any idea as to when this might realistically happen?
Slashdot Mirror
True, the arguement is valid to a certain extent, but it neglects a line of argument that social conservatives often use in other contexts - the slippery slope. The Patriot Act erodes the standards of what constitutes due process and legal rights. In itself, it may only move the line of what constitutes appropriate action on the part of the government marginally, but over time, such incremental changes can have unintended consequences such that it no longer requires a corrupt government to trample on the civil rights of some or all Americans because the definition of what those rights are can be so changed that what was once considered trampling on rights becomes an accepted norm. If pre-emption was a good enough reason to invade Iraq, it is a good enough reason to act to protect civil rights.
But as it turned out, one of the lessons to be drawn from this is that people don't actually want to put up with ads. In a world where even the likes of AOL tout their pop-up blocking features, it is safe to say that pushing ads onto a desktop just wont't fly. What you will get by having your desktop search utility on people's computers is probably limited to having your logo in their face. Oh, and given the choice that users will have in search utilities, chances are that trust, if not loyalty, will play a role in who people "invite" onto their computers. Having a lock on desktop search will probably be linked to having a lock on web search - and that is where the money will continue to be made.
So it's embarassing that it doesn't work and the controversy about the program remains - but when has the current administration ever let controversy about what it wants to do get in its way? In context of the current administration, a reliability issue that does not likely require substantial technical development is not a "serious" setback, certainly not something that might jeopardize the program. A possible delay in activating the system is a minor embarassment at worst - it is not as if the deadline was responding to real world conditions. At any rate, who's to say that the system won't be declared "active" anyway. It wouldn't be the first time that political requirements rather than hard data have driven policy.
While the subject of whether or not a missile defense system is practicable is debatable (i.e. a worthy subject of discussion with arguments to be heard on both sides), I do not propose to join it at this point. However, having RTFA, I can't help but wonder at the characterization of the failure as a "serious" setback. The missle shut itself down. Maybe it was a software failure, maybe it was a hardware failure. In either case, while a lot of work may have to go into searching for and fixing the problem, it is not a huge technical challenge - the technology exists to get a missle to launch and do so reliably and with high confidence (why else would you even need such a system). A serious setback would have been if the system had launched and missed the target by a wide margin or been unable even to track the target. The technical challange is tracking and intercepting the target, launching a missle is not. This was a bug or a screw-up at most.
Computers are still very much at the point where they are tools that require skilled operation depending on what you want to do.
I too agree and disagree. You have, for example, hit the nail on the head here. Computers and their related technologies do still require skilled operation, but that is not how or where they are being sold. The skilled/interested user is most likely to be found among early adopters and to a lesser extent parts of "early majority" sections of the classic sigmoid diffusion function that desribes the uptake of an innovation in market/population. The diffusion of computers is way beyond that now. In most developed economies we are looking "late majority" adopters and "laggards" getting online as prices come down, services like AOL and MSN promote themselves as easy to use and things like email become embedded in everyone's life. So, the technology is being marketed as safe and easy when it is not, and people who reasonably enough are not interested in how things work are getting their hands on it.
Part of the problem, to extend your automotive analogy, is that even if all users should not reasonably be expected to be able to "change their own oil", they do have to know how to drive, including how to avoid getting into a traffic accident, and ideally, be able to put gas/petrol into the car and at least recognize that when an "idiot light" comes on, to take appropriate action. So what do you do? Insist on "driving tests" for computer purchasers? (Right, explain to my dad how buying a PC should be different than buying a TV...) Have everything pre-installed, including the "idiot lights" (And in a cut-throat commodity business, who is going to pay, and should I have to pay for such a loaded box too?)
You are right in pointing out that users often come to technologies with naive assumptions about what they can do or how easily they can do it, but if they do, it is because they are being told this in the advertising. And just like a product such as IE or any other browser should be provided as a well designed secure product, either advertising has to set reasonable expectations, or manufacturers should actually supply easy to use technologies. Personally, I'm not holding my breadth waiting for either to become the norm.
The "average" computer user is a lazy, uninformed moron
With repect - and a great deal of sympathy (if not outright agreement, at least when I am trying fix something on a friend/relative's computer) I think that we should get away from this kind of mindset with respect to the "average" computer user. The average computer user is not interested in how things work, only that things should work and that they can use what ever piece of technology for the purpose they need it for. This extends beyond IT, to everything from plumbing, electricity, cars, furnaces, etc. Anything beyond basic operating and maintenance procedures gets in the way of use and should ordinarily be outside the domain of the "average" user. The problem lies with technologies and products (e.g. IE) that are poorly designed and therefore require more expertise from the average user than is appropriate.
Sure it's easy to get frustrated with "average" users, but they should not have to be interested in how things work. Don't be so gloomy, there are worse things than being in a position to help a fellow human being with a problem.
but it's now wireless - that's progress
... um... exactly... they are not "scared", they are acting proactively to prevent things from becoming "scary". As you say, they are responding to an as yet (they hope) containable threat to their business, not something that they are necessarily "scared" of now.
I don't know if "scared" is the word - it might be more accurate to say that MS recognizes Linux as a serious and viable competitor. That itself is pretty strong valildation. I don't imagine that MS will actually be "scared" until Wall Street analysts start to make reference to Linux as a major contributor to declining MS earnings.
... interesting - I can see why the US government may want to regulate US citizens anywhere in the world. Do you have any idea about how far down the supply chain this kind of regulatory authority might extend - design, manufacturing, servicing, marketing, operations etc. Would Americans working as suppliers to the ultimate provider of the service give the US government regulatory authority?
and 2) don't register your company in the USA.
Given the price of these trips, I doubt that the added cost of having to fly to another country is going to significantly impact on customers' willingness to buy the service.
For those interested, the current issue of The Economist has an article on voting technology. It does not, of course, discuss this latest development, but gives a good overview of the area, with a great deal of attention given to the issue of paper, paper trails, and making the whole system more transparent.
... with all due respect, you are missing something. It may seem trivial, but there is quite a bit of difference between a requirement to show ID where the regulations authorizing the demand are public, and a requirement for which the regulations authorizing the demand are secret. You are quite correct that it is reasonable for authorities and service providers to request verification of identity in some circumstances, however, in a democracy, it is also reasonable that the laws and regulations that are enacted on behalf of the people are made known to the people.
Also, your logic in the case of the hypothetical teen needs to be re-examined, a teen's claim on his/her own behalf is not the same as an anonymous third party's (presumably with some credentials to make the call) certification of fitness to operate a motor vehicle.
Having lived in four countries over the past 12 years, I agree with your earlier comment to the effect that no single country has got everything right. With reference to your comments about the Federal Reserve (and similar central banking institutions in other countries), however, I have have to disagree. There is a tremendous amount of difference between the influence of the Fed and the power of central planners in a command economy (the term economists sometimes use to describe systems such as those of the former Soviet Union etc.) The key word is "command" - the Fed does not make anyone do anything. They alter the the parameters within which business and individuals make their decisions on the expectation that outcomes will move in one direction rather than an other. They do not dictate behavior or otherwise tell those who control economic resources how they should use those resources.
Dispite disagreeing with this part of the argument, I do agree with you on the link between authoritarian government, corruption and almost inevitable collapse (or stagnation).
The OECD guidelines for the use and handling of personal information issued in 1980, while not part of US law are a pretty good minimum standard to apply to any privacy and informatiom handling issue. Unless there is an Act of Congress that gives this the go-ahead (which is not mentioned in the article) this decision on what to do with information collected at the Statue of Liberty pretty much trashes the following principles:
Purpose Specification Principle: The purposes for which personal data are collected should be specified not later than at the time of collection and the subsequent use limited to the fulfilment of those purposes or such others as are not incompatible with those purposes and as are specified on each occasion of change of purpose.
Use Limitation Principle: Personal data should not be disclosed, made available or otherwise used for purposes other than those specified in accordance with th ePurpose Specification Principle except: with the consent of the data subject; or by the authority of law.
Liberty indeed.
Even without comparing the digital divide with bigger issues, it seems to me that there are problems with the whole concept itself. The idea of a digital divided appears to have an underlying assumption that poor people - regardless of where they live - are poor because they do not have access to information in general and the Internet in particular. While this is unquestionably a symptom of poverty - I am not sure that this is the biggest structural hurdle that has to be overcome in order to provide equal opportunity for all. It sounds great but what will it actually do for most people?
Of course word for word reproduction is prohibited by journals. That's not versioning, that's reproducing. And, of course, they want first crack at major announcements. Nevertheless, the demands of journals should not necessarily preclude different versions being made public after - or in some cases before - the main journal article is published. Interim/prelinary reports, reports/summaries to funding bodies, conference presentations, and the like differ substantially from the level of detail and presentation of a journal article. While some journals won't want material presented at conferences - and few conferences would want material that had already appeared in the main journals, I have never been presented with a demand from either a journal or a conference that the material (as opposed to the specific presentation of the material) never be presented anywhere else, ever again. It is, therefore, not uncommon for material to appear in different versions through time: a write up of results and findings to the funder, a summary of results (possibly interim or preliminary) at a conference, later the main journal article comes out, later still it might be expanded into a book or reworked into a chapter etc. Even if the researcher delayed making a summary of the material available to the public until after the journal article had been published, its form and content could differ substantially from what the journal was selling. Indeed, given the tendency of researchers to prefer moving on to new projects than completely reworking their old material, any such public summaries that might be mandated in funding agreements would probably be closer to the preliminary summaries for funders or conferences than to the more refined elaborations published in journals.
It seems to me that these two are unrelated. The journals are certainly free to charge whatever they want, and given that the circulation of these journals is tiny it's understandable that they aren't going to be cheap. Since digital archiving is a bit questionable libraries of course want paper. The funding by govenment grants is all fine and good, but last I looked that funding went to the researchers, not the journals.
What about versioning? While academics have career needs to get their research into the most prestigious (and often expensive) journals, there is nothing to prevent them from distrubuting the results in other formats and other venues. It is not, for example, unusual for the same research to given to a conference, published in conference proceedings, published as a journal article and even as a chapter in a book at some point. If there were to be a requirement that some version of the research report be made available - it would not have to be the version that appeared in the pricey journal - then the public would have access to federally funded research. No doubt the journals would complain about this, but there would still be room for them in the market as aggregators, vettors (in the form of peer review) and publicists - finding material in a journal would still be simpler than trawling through the websites of every researcher and research center to see what they have done with public money. The funding providers could, of course, aggregate the results of work that they fund - and perhaps they ought to. While this could be seen as an even greater threat to the journals, they would still have the validating function of the peer review process to offer some potential to add value to their research oriented customers. All in all, this is yet another example of old content distrubtion models have to face new realities.
For what it is worth, you can tell what dairy the milk came from by looking at the dairy identifier, usually printed with the sell-by date. We buy store brand milk - from dairy plant 25-100 - which comes from the same plant as one of the "premium brand" milks here in the Boston area, but costs considerably less.
... and how about letting cable providers into the telephony side of things like they do in the UK? That would give the consumer a choice in both who provides the service and who provides the line. Then separate the service areas that each company offers and allow competition in all areas.
... just goes to show that one should never rely entirely on slides... Thanks
Very interesting stuff - could I ask where the data is from. I don't mean to question it, I would just be interested in knowing where you got your numbers.
For what it is worth, "friction" is economics jargon for anything that prevents markets from allocating resources with the perfect efficiency usually assumed in basic economic theory. Barriers to entry are one source of friction, but anything from information assymmetries, to transaction costs, transportation costs, etc. etc. all contribute to "friction". Part of the hyperbole of the late 90s was that information technology would enable "friction free markets" - but while it did reduce a lot of sources of friction in some markets, it created new forms in the guise of information overload, complexity due to choice proliferation, uncertainty from the speed that products and services became obsolete etc., etc.
Lock-in and switching costs are another aspect of the purchase decision that are worth considering. Whenever you buy a new system of any sort, there are costs to switching from whatever you are using now and risks of being locked-in to the vendor that can increases the buyer's long-term costs. While your company wants to make money down the line with service and support, by going the open source route, your company would be reducing the buyers' future lock-in costs (and therefore current switching costs) which should increase current sales. It creates the relationships on which to build the future support business. Sure with open source there is less certainty that they will go with you for support, but your foot is in the door and if your products and support are good enough, the relationship should be strong enough to win that future business.
IR is already in widespread use, supported by many phones and most PDAs, and very cheap.
Very cheap - good point. And something not mentioned in the article. What would really drive the adoption of RFID - and make available the advantages of the technology that are mentioned elsewhere (i.e. RFID tags would be much cheaper and smaller.) would be announcement of the worlds CHEAPEST RFID reader. That would be news. Sure, the price of anything will come down with volume, and volume comes with widespread adoption, but to speed up the rate at which this technology gets adopted - and have super-small readers embedded in all kinds of devices - not only do the tags have to come down in cost, but the readers will have to be cheaper too. Is there something about how they put this together that will, all other things being equal, give this a cost advantage over other ways of putting readers together?
Oh, and to be able to compare, does anyone know anything about the cost of a typical IR reader of the type used in phones, PDAs and laptops? How about the cost of other RFID readers? While I am sure that device manufacturers are assuming that the costs will be or become equal, any idea as to when this might realistically happen?