The future of Apple, Google, and Microsoft is...already here

We like to ascribe secret designs--nefarious and otherwise--to software vendors. Super-secretive Apple, in particular, tends to excite endless rumor-mongering as to what it's up to. It seems to me, however, that Apple and its top competitors, including Google and Microsoft, are increasingly transparent about their plans. We simply don't pay attention to the signs.

Let's start with Apple. The big rumor at present is the company's alleged work on a tablet computer, kicked off by The Wall Street Journal's bold declaration that "people familiar with the situation" suggest Apple is working on "a new touch-screen gadget."

While the rumor may be true, it's highly unusual for anyone "familiar with the situation" of anything at Apple to talk about it. After all, the punishment for divulging confidential Apple information is death. Or worse: the icy glare of Steve Jobs.

But we don't really have to look to rumors for this one. As Cult of Mac reports, Snow Leopard includes a range of functionality--including a full-size virtual keyboard--that makes a lot of sense on a touch-screen device (one bigger than an iPhone).

Conclusive? Nah. But a very good sign of what Apple is thinking.

Google actually goes one step further. Google announced Chrome OS in early July, but it's not waiting for a magical unveiling moment. Instead, Google watchers think that they know exactly what Chrome OS will be like...because we already have it:

If you use Google Chrome and Google's web applications, then you're already running Google Chrome OS. Just maximize Google Chrome's window and imagine that each tab is an instance of an application.

Perhaps Google is more open than most because it increasingly works with open-source code and communities, and secrecy doesn't exactly lend itself well to fostering either of those, but still....

Even Microsoft, that reputed bastion of secret monopolistic plans, is pretty open about future product direction. For example, Steve Ballmer has called SharePoint Microsoft's "next big operating system". This may not mean much to many, but it speaks volumes about Microsoft's desire to marry its personal computer dominance to cloud and/or server-based computing.

Want to see where Microsoft thinks computing is going? Yes, you can read the documentation on Azure, but you'd find a much more tangible example by installing SharePoint.

Perhaps we should spend less time guessing at what such leading vendors may announce, and instead take a closer look at what they've already released. The clues are often hidden in plain sight.

This may herald a new era of transparency, as technology success increasingly depends upon community outreach, outreach that requires the ability to handle code in advance of a general release. Or it may simply signal the fact that it's very hard to keep secrets in any industry, much less the software industry, particularly when success depends more upon execution than whizbang innovation.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

[forever4now]

Hopefully, this will be an era of open standards, where companies win by delivering quality, innovative products rather than by user/business lock-in.

[odubtaig]

I think I'll await the much more likely delivery of a unicorn.

[knowles2]

was not that the code name of Windows Vista and we all know how that turned out.

[Thomas, David]

@odubtaig

ROFLMAO

Thank you :-)

[MadLyb]

Bravo.

I am so tired of half the content on tech sites being rumor, conjecture or outright fantasy. Let's get to reporting on what *is* actually going on in the industry.

[t8]

Waht is wrong with exercising a bit of foresight.
If you only report on what is happening, then the news is already out.

[elliotpike]

I agree. Actually, if one looked at the Core Animation API that had been added to Leopard (10.5) one would have had much insight into the iPhone (at least its look and feel) before it had been released. I had been theorizing for a few years that Apple was positioning itself to be the "embedded" OS for cash registers and ATMs and kiosks with these new Cocoa APIs. And I still think the "Tablet" will only be part of the big picture.

It would be interesting to see if SharePoint is the future of Microsoft. If so, I will downgrade any expectations for their future. Personally I find SharePoint (and all of ASP.Net with its strange client-server model that goes against most AJAX trends) to be horribly klunky--much like the original Win32/MVC architecture.

[Goodbye Helicopter]

Where is your journalistic integrity?
That's not a "Virtual Keyboard".
It's the Keyboard Viewer which has been a Mac OS component since pre-OS X days!!!
Jeez, don't your editors ever edit or do you guys ever do anything like verifying stuff before publishing???
[CNET editors' note: Prohibited content deleted.]

[ckh1272]

Since you obviously don't know, he is referring to how the keyboard is being used. It is now easy to select it for use. That would seem to indicate a broader use for such a thing, like touchscreen typing. The old versions were not set up for touch screen use. This quote from Appleinseider explains it a little better:

"Snow Leopard features a new, larger on-screen software keyboard that is accessed more easily than in Leopard. The soft keyboard can also be expanded to take up the entire width of the screen. The new operating system also features the publicized "Expose" feature, which allows users to easily switch between different open windows within the same application with a finger-sized preview pane."

Hope that clears up the confusion.

[bbabadu]

Id' like to think that would be true, but based on the past and recent history (both MS and Apple), locking in users is part of their business models.

[Perry_Clease]

Of course they do, they are in business to make money.

[bbabadu]

@Perry -
I meant this to be a reply to forever4now's comment. Yes - everyone's in business to make money, you are wise.

[JFerrari427]

Innovation speaks for itself. Which is why Apple's latest products are popular. The iPhone revolutionized the cell phone. The iPod coined the term for MP3 players. And the Mac is slowly gaining market share. Big tech companies are not going to reveal all their hidden cards to the public, that wouldn't make any sense as their rivals would benefit from their research and innovative ideas. The trend that we are seeing is more evolution of software and products in an incremental fashion (off of existing software and hardware) rather than radical redesigns and changes.

[setjeff15081947]

Matt Asay [Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.], are you any relation to one of my favorite Editorial-Cartoonists, Chuck Asay?
What a refreshing idea. Stop the moronic speculating and see what is already ?Hidden-In-Plain-Sight?. As for Mr. Steve Jobs, I understand that, when annoyed with a Sub-Ordinate, he frames the offender?s face between his two, very large feet, and then gives them the ?Glare-of-Death?. I suppose the Unfortunate is then forced to lick and kiss the soles, while making pathetic ?Mewing-Sounds?.

[PeterVescuso]

Seems to me when there?s incomplete information speculation and rumor-mongering kicks in, which then, unfortunately, ends up producing misinformation. (It happens in the technology world, US public policy, etc.) I agree with Matt that there is usually more information available than most people realize, and believe that increased transparency and sharing of information is growing. At Black Duck Software, we?re seeing this trend reflected in the growing number of our clients who are engaged in multi-source software development ? combining OSS with proprietary applications for more efficient and cost-effective deployment of software solutions. Open source has influenced the need for companies large and small to find new ways to share, collaborate and operate more efficiently in order to remain competitive. In most cases, transparency on all levels supports this approach to business.