The Case for Server Side Digital Information Applications with particular reference to ‘Voice Out’
The Shift Towards Platform Neutrality
3.0 Introduction
In spite of its many disadvantages (Chapter 2 above), the client side model in digital information systems has survived for almost two decades without serious challenge.
There, are, however, a number of factors which are now emerging to make a serious challenge including:
- New platforms and financial models and
- A particular concern on the part of the public sector and organisations with a global remit that any system which can only be effectively used by 2/3 of the population is not fit for its remit.
The shift towards platform neutrality is inevitable but there are a number of factors which will retard the process; key factors are:
- Supplier near monopoly advice to consumers
- Media silos
- Media self-interest.
- Supplier near monopoly advice. In spite of the extensive trade press and internet resources to provide neutral advice on IT procurement, most major consumers, particularly the public sector, rely upon supplier advice.
- Media silos. Technologies and cultures are closely entwined. In the United Kingdom, for example, there is a high degree of trust and esteem for broadcasting because of the BBC as the benchmark whereas French public investment has been in film making. In spite of this, there is also a higher cultural value placed on computing than on television consumption and so television has been ubiquitous except in the classroom.
This may explain why broadcasting, telephony and PC/Apple systems seem to have learned very little from each other and so the broadcasting information navigation systems (EPG) and subscription models have had very little impact on the PC/Apple world; equally the broadcasting and telephony 'pay as you go' tariffs have had very little effect. The effort to get this far in computing is so great that it has forced many consumers into conservatism and caution.
There is also a tendency, particularly in the public sector, to analyse the present in terms of the past rather than the future so that yesterday's radicalism becomes today's conservatism.
- Media self interest. A conservative print medium which sees digital information as a threat is likely to oppose change as a matter of self interest. Similarly, broadcasters who use subscription models are likely to oppose information systems subscriber models that might reduce their revenue.
3.1 Broad Band Telephony
One of the obstacles to the transfer of large files between computers was the capacity of the telephone system to carry them; in some countries an equally important factor was the structure of telephone tariffs, particularly in countries with monopoly or near monopoly systems.
These two obstacles have now been overcome respectively by:
- Expanding broadband capacity and penetration
- 'Always on' tariffs.
- Broadband. Broadband telephony is being expanded not only as a matter of commercial enterprise but also as a mater of public policy. All the evidence points to penetration approaching 100% and, at least in the next 10 years, a number of steps in capacity.
- ‘Always on' Tariffs. Standard charges for telephone services regardless of time and volume of traffic make 'server side' applications much more economically viable as they take one major element out of the calculation.
3.2 Fair competition
There are two key factors in fair competition affecting the IT oligopoly which are in a state of flux:
- Changing hegemony in world markets
- Copyright and Digital Rights Management.
- Changing hegemony in world markets. It is only a matter of time (when, not whether) China will overtake the USA as the world's largest economy. The growth in the Indian economy and the energy-based revival of the Russian economy will all contribute to a segment of the world trading community not altogether sympathetic to companies with USA headquarters attempting to impose monopoly conditions on products so vital as computer operating systems and software. There are also signs of European Union restiveness with a situation where they are a major market for such goods but have absolutely no control over conditions of import and sale. Even if the World Trade Organisation (WTO) fails to recover from the stalling of the Doha Round, there will be increasing pressure on the USA to take a firmer line with its oligopoly; the alternative will be a massive increase in 'piracy' under the banner of free trade.
- Copyright and DRM. As with hardware, so with software. In the area of content there is already a substantial part of the world which does not observe World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) rules.
The threat from 'Open Source' is more indirect than direct. The handling of proprietary packages (coincidentally) became much easier almost at exactly the same time that 'open source' packages first emerged; they were and still are, quite difficult to install. The 'Open Source' threat is in demonstrating the possibility of alternative systems which can be manufactured and marketed without a USA base. These systems are likely to be sold over the internet rather than in client side packages because such emergent companies will not have global sales forces to shift physical product. They will rather use effective internet sales and on-line help.
3.3 Subscription Models
The imprecision of the cost of IT systems installation and maintenance on the one hand and the imprecision of their performance on the other make them competitively vulnerable once technology and market conditions make rival models viable.
Pay-as-you-go mobile telephony and on-line entertainment services have introduced a simple payment model but it does not work well for sustained or sporadic consumption where a package model is more appropriate. The great advantage of packaged models is that they allow for financial planning; there are no surprises.
There is no reason why the subscription model cannot be adapted for on-line services with the supplier (content broker) taking responsibility for:
- Operating systems
- Applications
- Upgrading
- Systems repair (patching, debugging)
- Virus control
- Junk mail filtering
- Personal settings
- Personal space boundaries
- Archiving.
The simplest scenario would be one in which the data broker supplied the same content and services automatically adapted to a variety of platforms and user interfaces. The consumer would then be able to conduct transactions seamlessly whether based at home or on the move.
The consumer might reach a separate but parallel agreement with the broker in respect of user interfaces but as the market for these is so varied and competitive it is likely that a choice would be made from a list of devices certified by the broker as being capable of handling a certain level of subscriber service.
3.4 The Transformation from Digital Privilege to Digital Rights
Access to peer normative activities is a hallmark of democratic institutions; it is part of equal access to goods, services and, above all, citizenship and office. There is a serious democratic problem when a universal right or expectation is mediated by a peer normative but substantially excluding medium. An earlier example of this disjuncture would be the universal right to vote based on peer normative but not universal literacy.
There can be a dispute about when the use of a medium becomes peer normative but 2/3 would seem to be a reasonable figure. At this point a medium becomes so ubiquitous that a lack of access to it causes socio-economic disadvantage. This idea links to two key principles of change:
- Early adopters of a technology widen the existing socio-economic gap with late adopters
- The more rapid the change, the more rapidly the socio-economic gap widens.
Illustrative examples of the first principle include the growth of literacy, railways, and electrification; the primary illustration of the second is the way in which economic growth affects wealth and income distribution where, no matter how absolute conditions improve for all, the differential will widen between the richest and the poorest most rapidly during periods of rapid economic growth.
A democratic society cannot afford to allow socially normative media (in the widest sense of the word - things that mediate) to be out of the reach of all citizens.
Some people argue that IT access could be upgraded from being socially normative at approximately 2/3 of the market to almost 100% with better financial support, education and training; but there is a counter argument that there is something so intrinsically complex in the qwerty-driven PC/Apple information mediation system that it will be intractable to a significant enough segment of the population to render it socially divisive. There is certainly a good deal of evidence that different media attain very different degrees of market penetration:
- Many people who can find all their goods in supermarkets cannot navigate on the internet
- Many people who can pass a driving test could never pass the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL)
- The number of people in the UK who can send a text message has now passed the number who use a qwerty keyboard [1]
- The use of digital subscription television in the UK was first widely used by the socio-economic group least likely to be on-line
- Mobile phones are most used by the socio economic group least likely to be on line.
These illustrations show that there is not a compelling economic argument against on-line access as subscription television is a success amongst the poorest sector of the population. Looking at mobile telephone access, the use of menu-driven systems also seems not to be a bar to access. Driving statistics show that multi functional activities are peer normative for all classes; and the supermarket experience of navigating complex systems is equally class indifferent.
It is clear from these illustrations that it is possible for the PC/Apple community to make changes to their systems which would allow easier access but their deployment of capital to achieve maximum shareholder value (see 2.6 above) has prevented this development. However, shareholder value must now be balanced with legal obligations (see 5.2 below).
3.5 The Green Imperative
It is only a matter of time before environmental impact assessment touches digital information systems.
Typically, the client side model of information access produces the following household hardware requirement:
- More mobile telephones than householders
- More radios (digital and analogue) than householders
- More than one television
- More than one games console
- More than one PDA/media player
- More than one PC/Apple system
- One major hi-fi stack
- One land line telephone and extensions.
In principle, this hardware requirement could be reduced to one home-based processor and one personal mobile processor with a small variety of, non cabled, user interfaces. This would depend upon a server side organisation of data that necessitated much less client side alternative modes of navigation and access.
The long promise move towards 'thin clients' and 'fat phones' is inevitable but it will not obtain critical mass until public sector communications imperatives are properly understood.
3.6 Public Sector Platform Neutrality
A number of factors are coalescing to push the public sector away from the PC/
Apple oligopoly towards platform neutrality; key factors are:
- The socio-economic phenomenon known as "Exclusion" (see 3.4 above)
- Recognition of the penetration of SMS (text messaging)
- Supplier side failure.
Before discussing the last two, however, it should be noted how little impact other arguments have made. Key factors so far overlooked are:
- The "Green Imperative" (see 3.5 above)
- User requirements as a driver of procurement
- Excessive training requirements (see 2.1 above)
- Cost (see 3.8 below)
- User Requirements. There are two curious phenomena which characterise public sector involvement with PC/Apple (and also EDS/Oracle) technologies: first, governments know that IT is important but seem not to know why; secondly, suppliers have designed systems independently of a procurer user requirement based on task analysis. The first point is a matter of profound public policy and not directly relevant to this Report but the second is fundamental. Most of the exclusionary obstacles in PC/Apple systems would be driven out by a properly constructed, generic user requirement.
The scale of the task to be undertaken to change public policy should not be under-estimated. Looking at factors that are changing policy there is one key lesson which, not unnaturally, is that phenomena which officials can personally grasp have far greater impact than more abstract ideas. Thus, the impact of SMS has been much greater on officials than the much more serious problem of supplier failure.
- SMS. Text messaging is now an integral part of public sector service delivery from the London Congestion Charge to messages from intelligence services to citizens on the level of public safety alerts. As mobile user interfaces grow in variety and power, aided by hardware disaggregation (see 5.4 below) based on cable free communications protocols (eg BlueTooth), the future of text messaging is assured. The use of keyboard devices will increase use and the length and volume of documents.
The accessibility implications of this phenomenon will be further discussed in Chapter 5; it is sufficient to say here that SMS has a largely beneficial impact on accessibility.
- Supplier Failure. If there was such a huge degree of supplier failure in any other area of procurement such as there has been in IT there would be a national crisis. The ubiquitous joke comparing IT performance with automobiles has a serious side. The public sector seems to have simply adopted a stoical attitude to IT market failure (see 2.5 above) and consequential systems failure. This stoicism is steadily changing. Although the impact of the 'Open Source' movement has been far more symbolic than real (see 3.2 above) it has prompted thoughts of competitive factors. The SMS revolution has also contributed to a broadening of perspectives. These are positive factors but there is still much work to be done.
3.7 'Mission-Shaped' Technology
A number of key factors are coming together to alert policy makers to a more flexible attitude to technology:
- SMS capability (see 3.4 above)
- Experience with 'vulnerable' groups
- Social exclusion
- Low on-line public services uptake.
- Vulnerable Groups. The UK Government is becoming increasingly aware of the cost to the public sector of social exclusion; and it has begun to recognise that 'vulnerable groups' cannot be uniformly reached by PC/Apple systems. One good example (which I pointed out at a Government seminar) is that female victims of domestic violence will not pause to unplug and then carry away the domestic PC when they are fleeing a shared home but they might just take their mobile phone!
The experience is now becoming much wider with the recognition that population movement and increased diversity demand different solutions from the hard copy leaflet on the one hand and the 'self service' English language Government web site on the other. Governments are also worried by the high immigrant consumption of media offerings from their country of origin which retards social cohesion. This can only be overcome by proactive communication rather than reliance on a web site and this in turn largely means the use of mobile phones.
- Social Exclusion. Much has already been said (see 3.7 above) on social exclusion in general but there are some specific points which would be helpful here:
- First, there is a proper distinction to be made between social exclusion that Government s believe can be mitigated by current policy approaches (tax credits, the minimum wage, improved housing, education and training) and social exclusion which is apparently intractable without a radical approach and which is currently costly for the country and the victims who have a high level of involvement with illegal substances and/or the criminal justice system. Conventional IT training courses have made no impact on this group.
- Secondly, in one of its own programmes (MyGuide) the UK Government has recognised that it needs to construct its own 'radically simple user experience' in order to facilitate greater IT inclusion.
- Thirdly, there is growing recognition that end users assess input/output ratios and have found that they gain little or no reward for their IT effort. Which leads naturally on to:
- Fourthly, it is recognised increasingly that exclusion is not a matter of IT ownership; the gap between the educated and skilled and the less well educated and unskilled will continue to widen even in the context of IT ubiquity.
- Government On-Line.
- Government On-Line Services. In spite of massive investment, the use of UK Government on-line services is very poor; only 20% of people with a home computer use an e-Government service. Most people who use UK Government services are likely not to be on-line at home or even at work. They account for the bulk of transactions in:
- The National Health Service (the poor, the disabled, the elderly)
- The benefits system (the poor, the poorly educated, the low skilled, the disabled and the elderly)
- Social services (the poor, the elderly, the disabled) and
- Housing (the poor).
- Education (truancy, exclusion, special needs)
- Criminal justice (addiction, crime, probation).
3.8 The imperative of cost saving
The Government is therefore in serious danger of paying for two parallel transaction systems: an on-line virtual service for an educated plurality; a traditional, face-to-face service for the less fortunate majority which nonetheless accounts for most transactions.
The only way in which this cost of double provision can be radically reduced while maintaining the current level of service is to make Government digital information services more accessible.
3.9 Child Protection
Traditionally families have relied upon broadcasting regulators to protect their children from potentially harmful and offensive material. There have been complaints about the abuse of their position by broadcasters but the disquiet has not been serious enough during the era of linear, analogue, largely nation-state based, broadcasting to warrant security devices on television sets. With the advent of non-linear, digital global broadcasting there has been a proliferation of pornographic material up to x-rated (over 18) material. Regulators are fighting a losing battle in this area.
The situation is much 'worse' on the internet. There is no protection for children against material likely to cause harm and offence. In spite of Microsoft's public position that child security is one of its top priorities, none of its systems are defaulted to child protection which adults may over-ride. The issue is still technologically complex and unsatisfactory.
The use of an on-line information broker, acting as an entity mid-way between an on-demand supplier and a traditional linear broadcaster would greatly assist child protection. A household might want to subscribe to completely different packages. the current security model is one in which the consumer enters a PIN but a secure server-side supply system should not simply rely on a PIN but should rely on the positive identification of the consumer through a double-key system.
Whatever security system is used, child protection will be much better secured through clearly branded, security protected services than through the current normative unmediated access to the content of the world wide web.
[1] Ofcom Media Literacy Audit; Report on Adult Media Literacy; Published 2nd March 2006