O'Reilly Network Weblogs: Building Apps for Non-Office Users

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http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3530

Building Apps for Non-Office Users

by Tim O'Reilly
Jul. 17, 2003

I laughed out loud. Danny O'Brien: "One of my big bones with MS stuff is that it always makes me feel like I'm eating out of the trash bins outside a cubicle farm. All of their software is designed to help busy executives plan their lives. Everyone I know uses it to try and write birthday cards and chat with their friends. When people use Microsoft Office they use it anywhere but in an office. Microsoft knows this - but it also knows that the money comes from their corporate clients, so there's a limit to how much it can bend its software toward a wider customer base. Ultimately when you use MS software, you're not the end user MS perceives at all: we're just living off the scraps Microsoft leaves out after feeding its big customers."

That's a really interesting observation, Danny. Part of what I like about what Apple is doing with Mac OS X is that they've redefined "productivity" away from the office and towards helping people do other things with computers: photos, music, videos. This idea also came up in a brainstorming session about Linux the other day at Lightspeed Ventures: I wondered if the real opportunity for Linux "on the desktop" may not actually be on the desktop, but in other spheres of end-user activity. What happens when a bunch of your embedded devices (PVR, audio console, and even your jacked-up phone) are running Linux? Is there an opportunity to make the old office desktop a tail on that dog, instead of the other way around? (Of course, this could also be an opportunity for the PlayStation or Xbox,) In particular, is there a possible opportunity for a UI that doesn't live on a single device, but lives on the net that connects them?

All speculation, but the point remains that we've been trapped too long in the metaphor of the office. That was the last computer revolution. When will the new apps that we've all adopted tip the scale enough that we build a user-interface that's optimized for non-office uses?

P.S. The rest of Danny's blog, about Nat Friedman's intriguing Dashboard app, is also well worth a read.

Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. In addition to Foo Camps ("Friends of O'Reilly" Camps, which gave rise to the "un-conference" movement), O'Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the Web 2.0 Summit, the Web 2.0 Expo, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, the Gov 2.0 Summit, and the Gov 2.0 Expo. Tim's blog, the O'Reilly Radar, "watches the alpha geeks" to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim's long-term vision for his company is to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. In addition to O'Reilly Media, Tim is a founder of Safari Books Online, a pioneering subscription service for accessing books online, and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, an early-stage venture firm.