If you’re building a new traffic-control system, should you take flying cars into account as you design it?  Probably not, but what about building software?  The eternal question when launching a new project is, What Is Your Goal?  How far down the road to you look?  Your choices are:

1. Meet TODAY’s usability expectations
2. Build your software to meet today’s expectations AND make it extensible enough to have a long shelf-life
3. Go beyond what today’s usability expectations are, create a new market, and change the game altogether

#1 and #3 are *sometimes* incompatible.  However, if you are successful, #3 will often change the market itself and change the standard for #1 (usability expectations for software) enough to change #2, the shelf-life of other software in your space.

The one thing constant about technology is change.  If you want to build for years down the road, you’re playing the game of peering into your crystal ball and attempting to figure out what the world will look like at that point.  To do that, you’d better know both technology and the marketplace like the back of your hand.

Knowldge @ Wharton just did an interview with Ray Ozzie and reading it, I can’t escape the feeling that Microsoft is solidly in the #1/”play catchup” camp.  Reading what Ozzie had to say, I think that Microsoft is either A) trying to protect their fat-client foothold or B) not being visionary enough to be a player in the future.

For example, Overture looked into the future and saw advertising driven by search terms.  Google saw what they were doing, realized that it WAS the future several years down the road, and built its business on that decision, while Yahoo was worrying about selling banner ads.  Ozzie even straight up admitted as much in the interview:

Knowledge@Wharton:  If you could roll the clock back five or so years and change anything you wanted to, what would you alter that would position Microsoft better today?

Ozzie:  Well, I mean, [that's an exercise in] revisionist history, you know.

Oh, had we recognized the power of the ad model sooner -- that's probably the single thing.

There were many in the company who understood the power of search, going all the way back. But, like many [others], we thought of it more as a feature. You know -- "You can search this, you can search that" -- as opposed to the ad-based auction, and how that would change the game for online marketing. That would probably be the one thing.

That decision by Google to peer into the future and say “this is the way things are going to be” changed A) usability expectations and B) the lifetime of existing search engine advertising platforms.  They disrupted that space in a big way.  Now, the other players (primarily Microsoft and Yahoo) are struggling just to get back to A.  In my thinking they should really be shooting for C, but that’s a topic for another day (see my post the other day on “The Google Killer”)

What I find interesting, however, is watching the mindset of certain companies as they plan and introduce new products.  It seems to work without fail that when companies shoot for #1 they do get there eventually but at that point they’re “just another” product on the virtual shelves at that point.  Exhibit A is Microsoft and Yahoo’s search engines, Exhibit B is Yahoo’s Panama advertising engine.  All tried to emulate what Google was already doing rather than pushing the envelope in any way.  Thinking outside the box just to play catch-up more effectively.  Also-rans.

Ozzie had a lot to say about how the ideal software deployment is a combination of online/offline (Web AND desktop) components, about how applications need to be available offline, and so on.  Well, that is true, TODAY.  But what about tomorrow?  What happens when wifi is available on planes, and Google or somebody else rolls out a nationwide, free wifi network?  Google can kill that entire line of reasoning tomorrow by turning on free Wifi for everyone!  Where does your ROI on that offline access and any fat-client technology go then?  (Hint:  go look in the bathroom)  The offline access problem WILL be solved, the question is, how?  By extending the network, or by making clients fatter?  I think you can tell where Google thinks the market is going tomorrow by looking at where they’re putting their eggs—in the “thin client everywhere” basket.  I have to say I agree.

It’s a hard line to walk for tech guys.  Changing the world is a tough sell to business units and marketing--they don’t like new paradigms, it’s not something you can easily wrap your head around and equate to something already on the market because, well, it’s not on the market yet.  But if you want to be the next Google, it’s something you have to do.  Google’s already doing it, and I have a TON of respect for them because of it.  They take the meaning of “Be PROACTIVE, not REACTIVE” to a whole new level, and the rest of the industry has to react.  As Steve Jobs likes to say, are you trying to put a dent in the universe?