I ran across an old MRD for a mobile-optimized commerce platform that I created 18 years ago when I was at a two-bit startup, Cellmania. Impressive was my prescience, although the timing was more than a bit bulloxed from both technology (WAP phones over GPRS networks) and market (on the eve of the dot-com crash and 9/11) perspectives.
In retrospect, the use cases held up relatively well while the enterprise software-centric execution comes across as highly anachronistic. I had previously been shilling Sun OS products where, in deep denial of open source, we developed half-measures like Sun Community Source Licensing, which, akin to Gorbachev's policy of Glasnost, only highlighted our inadequacies. While we had the makings of a decent tech stack, we clearly hadn't picked up on the trend towards developer-focused execution.
A skill I evidently did bring over from my Sun days was the ability to market the road map. While the stack was mostly developed, the frills and support models were pure brochure ware.
As for Cellmania, the deep freeze post 9/11 put the place on a reduced footing. From that point, it survived for quite a while longer with a focus on a proto-app store concept until it was picked up by Research in Motion/Blackberry.
No comments:
Post a Comment