October 26, 2007

من محركات الوقود لمحركات البحث


مجلة العربي (الكويت)، أغسطس 2005 [العنوان المنشور في مجلة العربي: محركات بحث وبليونيرات شبان]


حققت محركات البحث على الإنترنت هائل النجاح والأرباح لكونها الوسائل الأولى لمساعدة المستخدم للوصول لما يريد وسط محيط الشبكة العالمية.

في 19 أغسطس 2004 طرحت شركة "جوجل"، محرك البحث الشهير على الإنترنت، أسهمها للاكتتاب العام في بورصة "ناسدك" الأمريكية، وبلغت قيمة سهم الشركة في أول أيام التداول 100 دولار أمريكي. مما جعل التقييم المالي للشركة يتخطى الـ 20 مليار دولار، وهو ما يفوق التقييم المالي لشركة جنرال موتورز للسيارات. وفي أوائل فبراير هذا العام كان سهم جوجل في ارتفاعه المستمر بحيث قفز بتقييم الشركة – التي أسست عام 1998 – لحوالي 55 مليار دولار، وهو ما يفوق التقييم المالي لشركتي جنرال موتورز وفورد مجتمعتين. أي أن محركات البحث على الإنترنت فاقت في الأرباح – ببون شاسع – محركات الوقود! فما هي محركات البحث؟ وكيف آلت إلى ذلك المجد؟

محركات البحث على الإنترنت مواقع على الشبكة العالمية تقدم لزائريها إمكانية العثور على ما يريدون من معلومات. ومحركات البحث كثيرة، مثل جوجل (google.com) وياهو (yahoo.com) و"آسك جيفز" (askjeeves.com). فمثلا، لو أنك تريد الاطلاع على النسخة الإلكترونية لمجلة العربي، ولا تعرف عنوانها على شبكة الإنترنت، فتستطيع أن تكتب "مجلة العربي" في خانة البحث على أي من محركات البحث آنفة الذكر، وستأتي لك نتائج البحث بموقع مجلة العربي إضافة إلى الصفحات المنشورة على الإنترنت التي ورد بها ذكر المجلة. وثمة إضافات جديدة لمحركات البحث تتيح للمستخدم إمكانية تضييق مجال البحث عن كلمة معينة، فيختار مثلا أن يتم البحث بين ملفات الصور، أو ملفات المواد الصوتية والمرئية أو ضمن الأخبار الجارية فحسب، وهكذا.

تطور سريع

قطعت محركات البحث شوطا تطوريا قصيرا – ولكنه هائل السرعة – منذ البدايات الأولى عام 1990، إلى أن صارت أسرع التطبيقات نموا وتحقيقا للأرباح في القطاع التكنولوجي مع دوران أعوام الألفية الثالثة. وهو الأمر الذي شجع عمالقة قطاع التكنولوجيا عالميا على ولوج هذه الحلبة. شركة مايكروسوفت، مثلا، استثمرت ما يربو على 150 مليون دولار لتطوير محرك بحث متطور طرحته للاستخدام التجريبي في يناير/كانون الثاني الماضي (http://beta.search.msn.com)، وطرحت شركة أمازون، أشهر موقع لبيع الكتب والتجزئة على الإنترنت، محرك بحث (A9.com) منفصل عن موقع الشركة الأم في مايو 2004.

وبنظرة على تاريخ تطور محركات البحث سنلمح الدور الكبير الذي لعبته الجامعات في دفق الحياة سريعا في هذا النوع من التطبيقات التكنولوجية. وهي تشبه في ذلك تكنولوجيا الإنترنت نفسها التي بدأت كمشروع لدى وزارة الدفاع ثم أتيحت عام 1969 للجامعات لتطورها وتبني عليها، ثم انتقلت بعد ذلك من نطاق الجامعات إلى النطاق العام (العالمي) مع بدايات التسعينيات بعد أن نالها قسط كبير من التطوير.

ترجع الجذور الأولى لمحركات البحث الحديثة إلى تطبيق "آركي" (Archie) الذي طوره عام 1990 الطالب آلان إمتيدج من جامعة ماكجيل بكندا. في ذلك الوقت، كانت تكنولوجيا الإنترنت قيد الاستخدام (ويعني ذلك وجود معايير لاتصال الحواسيب بعضها ببعض)، أما تكنولوجيا الشبكة العنكبوتية العالمية للمعلومات (World Wide Web)، والتي تعني وجود معايير أو بروتوكولات لتبادل الملفات بشتى أنواعها، من ملفات نصوص وصور وصوت وبرامج، فكانت لا تزال قيد التطوير بواسطة المبرمج الفذ تيم برنرز لي.

قبل تطبيق "آركي" كانت الطريقة الوحيدة لتخزين واسترجاع الملفات هي عن طريق بروتوكول أو معيار لتناقل الملفات يطلق عليه اختصارا (FTP)، وكانت الوسيلة الوحيدة للحصول على أحد الملفات على شبكة الإنترنت (التي كانت متاحة بصورة رئيسة بين الجامعات الأمريكية والكندية) هي أن تعرف أن الملف المطلوب موجود بالفعل، وأن تعرف عنوانه، ثم 'تطلبه' باستخدام معيار (FTP). وبوصول تطبيق "آركي" تغير كل هذا، لأنه كان يقوم للمرة الأولى بالبحث على الحواسيب المرتبطة بالشبكة ليحصل على عناوين الملفات المخزنة على هذه الحواسيب ثم يقارنها بالكلمة (أو الكلمات) التي يبحث عنها المستخدم.

الأسلاف الأولى

وفي أبريل 1991، طور الشاب مارك ماكاهيل من جامعة مينيسوتا تطبيق "جوفر" القادر على البحث في عناوين المستندات (documents) وليس الملفات (files) وحدها. وفي عام 1992 طور باحثون من جامعة نيفادا الأمريكية أحد الأسلاف الأولى لمحركات البحث، وهو تطبيق "فيرونيكا"، وكان يقوم بالبحث خلال ملفات النصوص المخزنة على الحواسيب المرتبطة بالشبكة بصورة كاملة، وليس عناوينها فحسب. ثم تلاه تطبيق "جاجهيد" عام 1993، ويماثل "فيرونيكا" وظيفيا وإن حظي بالتفضيل لدى المستخدمين. وفي يونيو من نفس العام طور الطالب ماثيو جراي – من معهد ماساتشوستس للتكنولوجيا – طوّاف شبكة الإنترنت (Wanderer)، ويعتبر أول محرك بحث حقيقي، لأنه أول تطبيق يستخدم البرامج الروبوتية في تصنيف وفهرسة (indexing) محتويات الشبكة، إضافة إلى عناوين المواقع (URLs) على الشبكة أيضا. وكلمة "روبوتية" يجب أن لا تختلط بالروبوتات المعدنية التي شاهدناها في الأفلام السينمائية، وإنما تشير إلى تلك البرامج التي تقوم بوظائف معينة بصورة متكررة وسريعة لا يمكن أن يقوم بها البشر. وقد استخدمت هذه البرامج أول ما استخدمت في محركات البحث حتى تقوم بفهرسة ما يضاف من صفحات لشبكة الإنترنت بصورة دائمة.

وحقق مفهوم البرامج الروبوتية نجاحا تمثل في وجود 3 محركات بحث تعتمد على هذه التكنولوجيا بنهاية عام 1993: جامب ستيشن، ودودة الشبكة العالمية وRBSE. وخلال نفس العام، كان ستة طلبة من جامعة ستانفورد الأمريكية يعملون على مشروع بحثي اسمه "أركيتكست" وهو مشروع محرك بحث يستخدم للمرة الأولى التحليل الإحصائي للعلاقات بين الكلمات لتحقيق نتائج أفضل في البحث. وتمكن مطورو هذا المشروع من الحصول على دعم مالي من ممولي وادي السيليكون وأصبح اسمه، واسمه الشركة القائمة عليه، "إكسايت" (Excite.com) التي حققت شهرة واسعة خلال النصف الثاني من التسعينيات الماضية.

بزوغ ياهو

وفي عام 1994 طور ديفيد فيلو وجيري يانج، وكانا وقتها يدرسان لنيل شهادة الدكتوراه في جامعة ستانفورد، دليلا للصفحات المفضلة لديهما على الإنترنت، ثم أضافا إلى ذلك الدليل إمكانية البحث في موضوعاته المختلفة عندما وجدا إقبالا من المستخدمين على زيارة موقعهما، وغيرا اسمه إلى "ياهو"، الذي لا يزال يحظى بنجاح كبير وتفضيل من مستخدمي الإنترنت حول العالم. وفي نفس العام، 1994، أطلق الباحث برايان بنكرتون من جامعة واشنطن محرك بحث "وب كرولر"، وكان يعتمد على برامج روبوتية أكثر تطورا، استفادت منها عدة محركات بحث دشنت في العام التالي مثل إنفوسيك ولايكوس الشهير وأوبن تكست. ومحرك لايكوس نفسه بدأ أيضا كمشروع بحثي للدكتور مايكل مولدن بجامعة كارنيجي ميلون الأمريكية أواسط عام 1994.

وشهد عام 1995 أيضا إطلاق محرك البحث الشهير "ألتا فيستا" (altavista.com)، وكان حينها الأكثر سرعة بين منافسيه. كما أنه أتاح إمكانية البحث ضمن نطاقات مختلفة، كالبحث عن ملفات الصور أو مواد الفيديو. وكذلك كان أول محرك بحث يستخدم المعالجة الطبيعية للغة في الإتيان بنتائج البحث. فمثلا، عندما تكتب في خانة البحث: "ما هي عاصمة إسبانيا؟" فستأتي في صدر نتائج البحث الإجابة: مدريد، إضافة إلى الصفحات التي تحوي الكلمات المكونة للسؤال. وقد طورت شركة مايكروسوفت من هذه الخاصية في محركها البحثي (MSN) الذي طرحته أوائل العام الحالي (2005). وفي نفس العام، 1995، طور إريك سلبورج (الطالب بجامعة واشنطن) محرك البحث "ميتا كرولر"، وهو الأول من نوعه الذي يأتي بنتائجه من خلال تجميع نتائج البحث من عدة محركات بحث مشهورة، ولكن لم ينجح هذا المفهوم نتيجة عدم تعاون محركات البحث الأخرى مع "ميتا كرولر".

ثم جوجل ...

وفي عام 1996 طرح الدكتور إريك برور والطالب بول جوتيير (من جامعة كاليفورنيا) محرك البحث "إنكتومي" بنسخة أكثر تطورا من البرامج الروبوتية الطوافة (أسموها HotBot). وأطلقت عام 1997 محركات بحث عدة أهمها "آسك جيفز" و"فاست"؛ وهي شركة نرويجية. وفي العام التالي طرح سيرجي برين ولاري بيدج، وكانا حينها طالبي دكتوراه بجامعة استانفورد، محرك بحث جوجل، الذي بزت شهرته كل سابقيه ومعاصريه، باعتباره أكثر محركات البحث قدرة على التنقيب في مليارات الصفحات على الإنترنت وغربلتها للحصول على المعلومات التي طلبها المستخدم. وتعتمد تكنولوجيا البحث على جوجل على إعطاء قيمة لكل صفحة على الشبكة العالمية وفقا لعدد الصفحات المرتبطة بها (وذلك باعتبار أن كل صفحة على الإنترنت مرتبطة بصفحة أخرى على الأقل)، وحيث تحصل الصفحات التي تحظى بأكبر قدر من الوصلات أو الروابط المؤدية إليها بأكبر تقييم، ومن ثم فإنها تأتي في صدر نتائج البحث. وأدت هذه الطريقة المبتكرة إلى جعل جوجل محرك البحث الذي يأتي بأفضل النتائج، ويحظى بتفضيل ملايين المستخدمين حول العالم، حيث يقدر عدد مستخدميه في الثانية الواحدة بحوالي 1000 مستخدم.

وخلال رحلة تطور تقنيات محركات البحث، زاد عدد الحواسيب المرتبطة بالشبكة العالمية بصورة جبارة، وتزايد بالتالي حجم الملفات المتاحة في الفضاء الإلكتروني بصورة مماثلة، وقد أدت هذه الضخامة في حجم البيانات والمعلومات المتاحة على الشبكة العالمية إلى نتيجتين: أولا، أهمية الترقي الدائم في تقنيات محركات البحث لتمكين المستخدم من الوصول لما يريد في هذه "المكتبة" الهائلة. وثانيا، أن مستخدمي الإنترنت صاروا يبدؤون أي تعامل لهم مع الشبكة العالمية من خلال محركات البحث. فسواء كان غرضك التعلم أو الترفيه أو حتى قتل الوقت فإن المكان الأكفأ للبداية هو خانة البحث، لترتد إليك النتائج مصنفة ومرتبة في الموضوع الذي أردت، بعد أن كانت مبعثرة في الفضاء الإلكتروني بغير رابط، ومن ثم بغير قيمة.

وأدت هذه الأهمية المحورية لمحركات البحث، باعتبارها نقاط الانطلاق في تعامل معظم المستخدمين مع الإنترنت، إلى جعل محركات البحث أهم وسيط إعلاني على الإنترنت مما أدى بدوره إلى تصاعد قيم أسهم وأرباح محركات البحث مثل جوجل وياهو.

وليد الشوبكي

[مصدر الصورة: www.cdweb.com]

October 17, 2007

Newspapers in the Googlespace

[Waleed Al-Shobakky; published on IslamOnline.net, Oct 17, 07]

It is good news—for now—that Google is pushing major newspapers to open up their vaults.

With no fanfare the New York Times pulled the plug on its TimesSelect program this last September. Through TimesSelect, launched in October 2005, the Times started charging readers (who were not subscribers to the print edition) for access to some sections of the online edition, particularly that of opinion columns. Clearly, the objective was to capitalize on the New York Times’ fame as one of the world's best news papers to generate revenues through its online presence.

That was a fair thing to do. Why did the Times shut it down then?

The way the Times explained the closure implies it probably had to. In a short note, the Times cited “significant alterations in the online landscape” over the period TimesSelect was in operation that made it in the best interest of the New York Times readers and “brand” to grant full online access to all readers. Most important among those alterations was the fact that “[r]eaders increasingly find news through search, as well as through social networks, blogs and other online sources.”

Loyalty Crisis

While other factors were named, it is rather obvious that search engines—particularly Google—were the main reason behind this shift of direction. Reading between the lines of the statement, we find that the eminent newspaper is acknowledging that most of its online readership does not have particular loyalty to the Times. The new audience, the Times found out, is composed of Web-wanderers (or “googlers”) who use Google and other search engines as their gateway to information on the Web, rather than rely on a number of trusted Web sites.

The massive adoption of Google and its competitors as the universal homepages, or starting points, in every Web experience indeed has significant implications. One of them is that names or “brands” in the cyberspace may not be able to retain the value traditionally attached to them.

And Wikipedia (the free collaborative encyclopedia) is a case in point. Wikipedia is the emblem of Web volunteerism. Its entries (now in more than 104 languages) are contributions from anonymous users, rather than accredited experts. But because they are open to search engines to recall and display, they have a higher likelihood of ranking higher on result pages than, say, those of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which are hidden behind subscription walls.

Over the past two years it became rather the norm that whatever you are “googling” about (eighteenth-century musician Nicolo Paganini, Geneva Conventions or the irritable bowel syndrome), a Wikipedia entry will very likely show among the top five search results. That indicates that so many people have “linked” to the Wikipedia entry more than to other Web pages carrying the keyword you are searching about.

After all, Google’s algorithm, PageRank, works by assigning value to pages based on the number of links they receive. The value of each link, in turn, is determined by the value of the page from which it originates. A link from the Washington Post, therefore, carries far more value than one from, say, my own blog site. So when a Wikipedia entry ranks high on Google’s result pages, it is a translation of the number and weight of links that forward readers to the open-to-all encyclopedia.

Web Extinction

The proven efficiency of the PageRank in getting relevant results engendered a new habit of mind—the perception that “if it does not show on Google’s result pages it probably does not exist.” This of course is far from true. Google cannot, for instance, display pages from the subscription-protected content of newspapers and archive databases, which is an incredibly vast amount of information.

The rise of Google therefore presented content providers (particularly newspapers) with this existential puzzle: eliminate the subscription shields (and lose an important revenue stream) or the alternative is Web irrelevance and extinction.

On September 19 the New York Times grudgingly and unceremoniously yielded to the first option. The paper went even further and started offering free access to its archives from 1987 and on to the present. Before introducing TimesSelect, access to the archive was limited to seven days back.

To be sure, it is good news to have more of the Times’ high quality journalism available for more readers. Yet that development may also be a silver lining of a growing cloud. That is, thanks to Google and company, more and more newspapers find it difficult to reap returns on their property (good journalism and deserved reputation). It should come as no big surprise Philip Meyer’s prediction in his book The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age that newspapers will be extinct in the United States by 2043.

The Cyberspace and the Googlespace

Newspapers that open up their formerly protected content do not do this as a sign of hopelessness. In doing this they seek to continue to figure favorably—that is, among the top results— on result pages of search engines and hence more readers to their articles and Web site. That in turn would attract more advertisers.

And the biggest advertising company in the world today is none other than Google itself. Its revenues for this year are expected to be $11.5 billion—up 58% from last year’s.

Google places its “contextual ads” to related articles on Web sites of all stripes, whether of a reputed newspaper or a personal blog. Through its AdSense program, Google serves as the mediator between advertisers and content providers, no matter how small or how big.

It in fact is so common today to find Google’s quintessential text ad links on almost every site you visit. And here is how it works: an advertiser would specify one or more keywords, say, “Nokia accessories”. Whenever these keywords show on Web sites participating in the AdSense program, an automatic ad link to the “nokia accessories” advertiser will appear on the same page. The advertising revenues are shared between the content provider, on whose site the ad link appears, and Google.

Google’s AdSense has provided a source of income to the otherwise obscure small-time content providers, such as personal Web sites that offer reviews of consumer electronics, or sites of hobby-centered communities. Before Google these sites would not be sustainable.

Here lies Google’s paradoxical effect. Whereas it dulls the value of reputed content providers (by serving as almost the ultimate gateway to their content), it affords a lifeline to hobbyist and amateur content providers by making them available to Google users.

For Google, the quality of content on those small sites is no issue. What matters is whether they are able to attract a large enough number of users—and therefore more clicks on ad links—and more inward links, which would translate into higher ranking on search result pages.

“[Google’s] market lead,” a recent New York Times report on Google’s share price rising past $600 maintained, “is so large that advertisers tailor their technology to work best on Google ad networks, and Web publishers design their sites to best pull in more Google users.”

It could be argued therefore that Google’s engine is inherently biased for quantity. This does not automatically mean a bias against quality—but oftentimes this is the end result. As noted above, Wikipedia, a natural Google darling, ranks higher on Google’s engine than the subscription-only, expert-generated and edited Encyclopedia Britannica.

Google’s predominance thus promotes a culture that “venerates the amateur and distrusts the professional” as Nicholas Carr, former senior editor of the Harvard Business Review, wrote in a different context.

How, or whether it is possible, to avert this tide is a matter worth public debate. And as we enthusiastically embrace Google’s new technology offerings, we need to be aware of the consequences of its becoming our “auto-pilot” search engine, to quote a Chicago Tribune commentator. Unsurprisingly, the Economist Sep 1 issue’s cover story—which shed light on Google’s sprawling power—carried this uneasy title: Who is afraid of Google?



October 3, 2007

The Rise of Middle East Technology Parks

A feature article on the Science and Development Network -- SciDev.Net. Oct 3, 2007

The rapid growth of technology parks in the Arab world has so far created more expectations than outcomes, reports Waleed Al-Shobakky.

[In the photo, right, Eulian Roberts, CEO of QSTP. Source: QSTP]

It is "parking" time in the Middle East. Over the past few years, technology parks have been sprouting up all over the region: from Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia in the north, to Kuwait, Oman and Qatar in the east.

Recognising that their natural resources, particularly oil, are being fast depleted, and looking to emulate the success stories of technology parks in Asia, Europe and North America in creating jobs and successful businesses, countries like Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have constructed as many as seven or eight parks.

But as the ranks swell, the question remains: will technology parks be able to prove their worth?

Good reasons

The concept of gathering together businesses with similar interests in one place is now a region-wide movement in the Middle East, but different reasons lie behind each country's decision to join the bandwagon.

For instance, to the oil-wealthy Gulf states, science and technology parks are tools for diversifying the economy in preparation for the post-oil times.
For the less-endowed countries, such as Egypt and Jordan, technology parks seem to be a way out of poverty — with high potential returns without the need for prohibitively high investments.

The successful parks of India and Malaysia look particularly appealing to these countries. This may explain why Middle Eastern governments have established a total of 30 technology parks dedicated to information and communication technology (ICT) alone, according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). There are also 15 biotechnology parks, and 12 dedicated to advanced engineering.

Indeed, the buzz surrounding technology parks in the region, says Eulian Roberts, chief executive officer of Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP), is coming from what policymakers see happening elsewhere — namely the technology parks' ability to foster a country's economy, without necessarily relying on natural resources.

And there is research to back this up. A study from the United Kingdom's Science Park Association, says Roberts, found that companies located inside technology parks stand a better chance of gaining funds and support — and hence success — than their counterparts outside.

Technology parks are also thought to help initiate synergy with academic institutions. "They encourage productive R&D in academia and provide a mechanism to commercialise this research," says Omar Hamarneh, director of iPARK, Jordan's government-run institution mandated with supporting technology start-ups.

A focus problem

But the near consensus over the validity of establishing technology parks erodes when it comes to deciding what to do with them.

One view, as articulated by Tarek Elabbady, director of the Microsoft Innovation Centre in Egypt, is that technology parks should focus on supporting the "most rewarding industries," in terms of either monetary returns or jobs.

Elabbady says high-population countries like Egypt can make the most of technology parks by channelling their energy into the most rewarding job-creating sectors, such as agriculture and textiles. To that end, research and development activities could focus on areas such as bioinformatics and fertilizers.

Another view is that a technology park should be employed as an instrument to augment the economic gains from a country's existing natural resources, says QSTP's Roberts.

For a country with a small population such as Qatar, Roberts explains, technology parks can be a way to generate wealth through intellectual capital — for example, through development of specialised fuel formulas for the aeronautic industry and more environment-friendly energy solutions — rather than relying solely on the direct exploitation of natural resources like oil.

Besides the intellectual capital gains, science and technology parks can also bring about "human capital" gains. They could attract expatriates back from Europe and the United States and stem the brain drain, says Mikko Suonenlahti, a Finnish venture capitalist who runs the two new technology funds of the QSTP.

And beyond that, Egypt's Smart Village, like its counterparts in the region, is starting to attract foreign entrepreneurs and executives to set up their own companies.

Indeed, the current zeal for technology parks has put entrepreneurs in a good position. Governments and technology park authorities in the region try to outbid each other in offering incentives (such as tax holidays, access to venture capital and unrestricted movement of labour, equipment and merchandise) to attract entrepreneurial talents, both from within the region and from outside.

To some, such as Suonenlahti, "competition is always good," because the free movement of talents and venture capital in the region will lead to the best allocation of resources, and best outcomes.

Competition vs. integration

To others, such as Elabbady, competition at this stage should give way to integration that is based on specialisation. That view probably stems from a curious dilemma in the Arab world: countries that are rich in human resources (like Egypt and Turkey) are often poor in resources, and vice versa — as is the case in the Gulf.

result is either a technology park rich in human capital but poor in infrastructure and facilities, or one with good resources but a limited (and hence highly expensive) talent pool.

One consequence is that countries with similar economies — such as the Gulf States, with their reliance on oil — look set to compete for the same big clients in the hydrocarbon sector. Everyone is talking about specialisation in the long term. But it seems that little has been done to that effect.

QSTP's Roberts says that specialisation is surely the road ahead; but the nascence of almost all technology parks in the region makes them hold their bets as to what to specialise in, until areas of specialisation emerge naturally, in response to market realities. QSTP, for example, has among its targeted sectors aircraft operations, environmental technology, gas and petrochemicals and ICT.

Tarek Elabbady sees the situation differently. He says most technology parks in the Arab world are not focused, spreading their already limited resources on widely diverse activities.

The state of science and technology today, he says, would reward most those with focus on a certain discipline — such as what Singapore is trying to do in biotechnology, South Korea in electronics, or Taiwan in microchips.

Elabbady also believes that many of the science and technology parks in the Arab world have practically no entry criteria and are in essence real estate development projects with just a tiny research and development component.

Attempting to be everything to everyone, Elabbady says, could help technology parks get quick returns in the short term by attracting multinational and large national companies. But this approach, he adds, robs technology parks of any significant future potential, particularly in local capacity building.

On the other hand, Ahmed Naim, sales and marketing director at the Smart Village, says that the traditional boundaries between different research fields — such as information technology, media and communication technologies — are no longer relevant. And this is why such a diverse range of companies do business at the village.

Should the lack of specialisation then be a reason for concern? Adhip Chaudhuri, economics professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, says no.

In the oil-rich Gulf, he says, specialisation will happen sooner or later because the growing demand on oil serves as an incentive for companies to come and set up shop here in search for niche markets or innovative products.

Not the panacea

Whether diversity is good or bad for science and technology parks may not be certain. What is certain is that what those parks have achieved so far in the Middle East is not much in terms of patents granted or technology companies listed on international stock markets.

In spite of this, euphoric reports, particularly from state-run media, have already started portraying technology parks as a magic entry pass into the league of developed countries.

"We sometimes get carried away by the excitement and lose sight of the goals and how we are going to get to them," says Microsoft's Elabbady.
To counter this, adjusting expectation is necessary.

Eulian Roberts says that policymakers and the public alike need to be reminded that technology parks are not the panacea for the knowledge economy. They are rather "one important instrument that can focus effort and resources and deliver visible results".

Nevertheless, technology parks are already sending a positive message about the region into the larger world. Says the Smart Village's Naim, "The mere presence of technology parks in Egypt and other countries is gradually changing the desert-and-camels stereotypes about the region."


October 2, 2007

A Broader Cautionary Tale in the Skype Outage

[Waleed Al-Shobakky; published on IslamOnline.net]

Now that the dust has settled and the uproar has faded, what can we learn from the mid-August Skype outage? (Hint: A unipolar operating system world may have unforeseen weaknesses, and Microsoft is perhaps the least to blame.)

First, what happened? Skype, the most widely used Internet phone service (free to use from PC to PC) went black on August 16, 2007. (Arak)

Now almost a household name, Skype is not merely a "chat" service for teens with plenty of time to spare. Over the past few years, Skype-in and Skype-out services that afford calls to regular land-line and mobile phones at much lower rates have already lured many businesses away from traditional telecoms.

The two-day service collapse affected thousands of businesses. Not surprisingly, the outage invited outrage.

Skype — a company eBay acquired late in 2005 for US$2.6 billion — did not respond fast. Initially they kept mum about the reasons for the service meltdown. When they spoke, they were not terribly convincing. There was talk of the impact of Windows patch prompting a massive reboot wave that the Skype software could not handle.

Always on the lookout for chances to embarrass the software giant, the anti-Microsoft camp was quick to heap yet more of their criticism on what they consider Microsoft's release-prematurely-and-patch-along-the-way model. As a result, the Skype team quickly refined their earlier statement by stressing that the Windows patch may have "triggered" the bug but was not the cause for the bug or the outage.

True, but misleading.

The Windows patch in its own right is not responsible for the Skype outage. But the desktop world's inexplicable reliance on a single operating system — Windows — is probably the real culprit.

To understand why, we need to recall how Skype works. It utilizes the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology in which voice is transmitted as packets of data, similar to how e-mail works, with encoding and decoding happening at the two ends of the call, or the two user PCs.

The unique thing about Skype is that it largely does not have its own central servers (for routing calls and the like). Thanks to intelligent peer-to-peer network software, they harness each user PC as a node in the network. With every new user PC added, therefore, the network grows and the service (voice) quality improves.

At any point in time you log onto the Skype network, chances are you will find about seven million users online. In other words, you will be logged to a seven-million-node-strong network (possibly several times larger than Google's). The Skype founders had clearly honed their "distributed-network" model in their earlier project: the controversial Kazaa file-sharing network.

The Hypothetical Is Real

The peer-to-peer design of Skype has been, quite deservedly, touted as revolutionarily efficient. Instead of building a network that depends entirely on central servers, with costly hardware investments, you leave it to the software to connect together a network of nodes composed of the users' own PCs. And you offer the service almost free.

But a little, seemingly theoretical, question remained. How would the network function if all its users, for some reason, logged out en masse?

The hypothetical, it turned out, was real. And the answer to the question came on August 16. Users did not conspire to bring Skype down; they had to disappear from the network with the obligatory reboot after installing the Windows patch. The peer-to-peer design was put to test. And it failed (in the Skype-speak, it was only a glitch).

But before we rush to conclusions, one basic idea must be duly emphasized. This outage would not have appeared had we had a world with a variety of desktop operating system options. And it would be too simplistic to just label Microsoft as evil for this situation.

It is rather too unwise of governments, particularly in the US and Europe, to fail to see this limitation and its possible consequences. Needless to say, this does not mean that those governments should crack down on Microsoft, though this is what the EU competition court seems to be doing now. They should rather think more seriously about financing, through venture capital, and spearheading alternative desktop operating system projects.

What can be the incentive for governments to invest in operating system projects? Harnessing the collective computing power of user computers could prove crucial in affording more free and useful services, such as Skype, in both the developed and developing nations. Its potential, however, remains vulnerable as the next patch looms.

New Dimension to Old Controversy

The Skype sudden blackout indeed adds a new dimension to the long-standing controversy around Microsoft, the world's largest software company. However, this time around it is not the expensive Microsoft products versus inexpensive products from others. Nor is it closed-source versus open-source code (as in Windows operating system versus Linux). It is rather about the simple fact that a world dependent almost solely on a single computing platform is likely too vulnerable.

A technology sector with a Windows-only option is like how the world economy would be had we had, say, a Citibank-only global banking sector. There is the obvious vulnerability of not having backup or plan-B options. And there is the stifling effect a unipolar operating system world may impose on creative concepts that depend for their resilience on multi-colored networks, such as the distributed network of Skype.

Microsoft is probably the least to blame for that. And the market dynamics may not be too helpful. After all, as Microsoft grew larger — using monopolistic practices or not — it became increasingly difficult for smaller companies to compete with it. It, therefore, is incumbent on governments to step in where the market has quite failed.