Barbarians At The Windows 8

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There's a wonderful moment in the film Barbarians At The Gate when the beleagured CEO of RJR Nabisco tries out the 'smokeless cigarette' that's going to save the company from a buyout and discovers it tastes like a toilet when it's lit with a match - the R&D team have been using lighters all along.

The moment when Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was told that Lumia was Portugese for 'lady of the night' must have felt similar. If you're going to bet the future of your company on a single product, you really want to get it right. Totally right.

October 26th is another such moment, when Microsoft launches its Windows 8 operating system in six cities across the world, including - Gulf News tells us - Dubai. Windows 8 is really about Microsoft's future - the company arguably can't afford another Vista scale disappointment but it desperately needs to stay relevant in a world where iOS and Android are the talking points and most people have either stuck with XP or wished they had. The days of everyone flocking to 'this year's Windows' are long gone now. Windows 8 is going to have to be special - I'd argue it's going to have to be as special as Windows 3.0 was - a true game changer. And there are major question marks about that.

Early reviews have been mixed, with a great deal of disappointment and frustration expressed by reviewers. The 'tablet friendly' interface is actually a highly dangerous move for Microsoft. It's an inflection point - if the burden of navigating the new interface is as great - or greater - than the burden of change, users are more likely to make that change. Especially those of us who have been vexed by Vista and living with the nice but dim Windows 7. Microsoft's saving grace may be that the options out there are limited right now, but it's doubtful Google will give them too much 'wriggle room'.

October 26th is a Friday. It's also the first day of the Eid Al Adha holiday. It's not the day I'd pick for a Dubai product launch, but then what do I know...

This rare technology themed post comes to you courtesy of sponsor the UNWired radio show on technology, online and all things digital I co-host every Wednesday with Rama Chakaki and Siobhan Leyden. Today we're broadcasting live from GITEX - 12-2pm Dubai time (GMT +4) on 103.8FM or streaming live at this here handy link. This'll be my 24th GITEX and also marks my first meeting the girl who would become the future (and long suffering) Mrs McNabb!

It's GITEX Time Again...

Image via WikipediaAs The National points out today (very kindly quoting me babbling on about the show) in its GITEX story, this will be my 23rd GITEX. I should really stop counting... I've done ancient geek reminisces about GITEX posts before, like this one right here, so I'm not going there again.

This year is the show's thirtieth birthday. There was much talk about GITEX being 30 last year, but they jumped the gun a tad. The miracle is that it's still with us at all - all the other great horizontal computer shows barring Hanover's CeBIT have tanked. Comdex is no longer with us, the Which Computer show died years ago, along with many others. Why have CeBIT and GITEX survived?

One part of the answer is that both are essentially government owned shows that have a wider agenda than just filling exhibition space. GITEX also fills pretty much every hotel room in Dubai and acts as a great showcase for new companies looking for a Middle East base or to expand their sales/distribution network to the region. That government support also means not necessarily having to face the grim realities of commercial pressure quite as much as a private sector organiser - particularly over the past three years when, like CeBIT, GITEX had lost a number of large, high profile exhibitors. But both shows have seen a return to form this year, in GITEX' case thanks to a concerted effort by the organising team behind 'GITEX Technology Week 2011' to package things up attractively for exhibitors as well as to add stronger vertical elements that made it more interesting for companies to attend.

There's also the resurgence of technology in business to thank. The IT industry had grown stale, innovation was no longer compelling companies to invest in technology and the great rollout of technology as we all bought our little slice of the internet had slowed. IT vendors discovered that slapping a new number on a CD in a box didn't make us all rush out to buy the New New Thing.

Now, buoyed by mobile, tablets, the cloud, social media and other innovations, technology is becoming sexy again. People are looking at new stuff and, what's more, investing in new stuff. Dubai has always been the regional centre for the technology industry and has always been very much the 'shop window' for sales organisations targeting the Middle East. It's been that way ever since technology companies first started to open up regional offices - generally, the decision on location was taken by the person handling the region who was often the person who would have to come out here to live. Given the options, virtually to a man they chose Dubai as the most pleasant place to live. And so the technology industry came here - a process that took place some ten years before Dubai Internet City was conceived and launched. When DIC came along, they just all moved up the road.

When I first moved to the UAE, my old pal Bob Merrill, the GM of Ericsson Saudi Arabia, told me (in his Southern drawl), "You're going to Dubai for three reasons, son. Golf, women and hooch. Why, I could take your Dubai and put it here in Sitteen Street Riyadh and we wouldn't even know it was there." He had a point, although I think you'd notice Dubai if you plonked it in Sitteen Street these days!

Many of the companies who set up shop here first encountered the region through either attending or exhibiting at GITEX. If you were obsessive enough, you could trace the process and see how many exhibitors have stuck to Dubai over the years and added technology to the city's list of re-export businesses. How many executives, in fact, who have turned up to the multi-hall extravaganza that is GITEX - a show, if the truth be told, that has always been bigger than its market - taken one look around and said 'We gotta be in this market, boys'? Over the years I have personally witnessed a great number of them.

GITEX is good for Dubai, which is why they'll never let it die. This year will see whether the re-invention of this most venerable of computer shows will provide the right mixture of showcase and meeting point to drive it forwards. And whether the new found burst of innovation in the technology industry will continue to make it relevant once again.

Show

I heard someone who knows what they talk about saying a very interesting thing. "This GITEX is worse than it was during the Gulf War."

Then, the organisers had to space the stands to fill the halls. There were 'café' areas set out in the show filling the space where stands had pulled out or had never come in. A lot of US companies wouldn't let their people travel to the Gulf so a number of big names were absent. And there were shell scheme stands in the main halls, not just flashy built-to-order 'space only' stands.

He's right. This GITEX was exactly the same. Where before there were massive two-story stands from the major players in technology, now there are blocks of schell scheme. GITEX is not well at all. A quiet show, no major car parking hassles, no gridlocks. A dull show, little on offer that will change your life and most of the major players simply aren't around.

Oh dear, oh dear.

Pronouncing GITEX

It’s jee tex. Not gheetex or jittex or, God forbid, Gittex. It was originally called GITE (pronounced jeet as in French holiday home), for Gulf Information Technology Exhibition. Some bright spark thought of adding the X a few years on.

It's lie-nux. Originator Linus Torvalds is called lie-nuss. Not Linn Us. See Charlie Brown.

It's router as in trade route. It re-routes signals. Not router as in the rout of the Byzantines or as in grooving tool. Or, indeed, as in hunting for truffles.

Oh. And while we're on the subject, it's Jebel Ali as in Jebbel Alley. Not Gerbil Arlee.

Just so's we're clear...

GITEX - A Dull Show?

It’s day three of The Show To End All ShowsTM, GITEX, and there’s barely an inspiration to share. The papers are talking about the TV screens on display, which speaks volumes. Only yesterday’s Al Eqtisadiah has broken ranks so far and been publicly highly unimpressed in its front page story.

It has to be said that GITEX is looking like a show that is heading fast down the same road as Which Computer, Comdex and the world's other major horizontal IT trade shows. You don’t go GITEX to enter the Middle East market any more (at least not if you’re a multinational key brand). And you don’t do GITEX if you haven’t got a channel but would like one (there are a million other ways to recruit a channel – besides, everyone who matters has an establishd channel). And you surely don’t do GITEX just to stay ‘in’ with the government (that’s just naïve, no?). The increased frequency of today's product life cycles also means that companies are less willing to hold back products to launch at exhibitions.

And so more and more organisations are realising that they don’t actually have a solid reason to spend the very considerable amount of money it takes to put on a display at the show. This is something that could well be construed as a call for the organisers to significantly re-invent the show: and, in my view, it’s going to take vision, creativity and really smart management to keep the GITEX exhibition relevant to pretty much anyone that matters.

The transformation should arguably have started three years ago. I do wonder if they can compress that into the coming 12 months. If they can, then perhaps there’ll be a show worth attending next year.

How ironic, then, that GITEX should become a victim of its own success. Let's hope they rethink it before it's too late.