This document discusses the future of the information society from the perspective of China and beyond. It notes that more things will have digital components and be connected, transmitting more information. This will impact society in unprecedented ways and lead to renewed competition over technology. The presentation outlines the impacts of the internet of people, including new digital divides and the need for user sovereignty. It also discusses the rise of new monopolists in devices, software and platforms. Finally, it addresses the shifting of production and innovation to emerging countries like China and the challenges this poses for Europe.

1. Information Society of the Future
– A View from China and Beyond
Li Gong
Mozilla
lgong@mozilla.com
10/25/2012
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2. Best New Cities for Business Innovation
(Fortune, 09/24/2012)
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3. Information Society Means …
• More “things” with “digital heartbeats”
• More “things” connected
• More “information” transmitted and stored
• More people connected, often in unexpected ways
• Our society impacted in unprecedented ways
• Renewed fierce competition to div up the world
• Interplay: technology/industry/commerce/society
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4. Presentation Outline
• Internet of People (not devices, websites, and businesses)
– Positive and negative societal impacts
– New digital divides
– User sovereignty
• Monopolists re-emerging
– New war over devices
– Keep the new mobile Internet open
– Internet governance
• Power shift to the BRICs
– Away from Europe?
– Challenges for the Europeans
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5. 1: Internet of People
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6. Information and IT Sipping Into
All Corners of Work and Life
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7. Internet of Computers, Devices, “Things”
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8. Internet of Websites and Businesses
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9. Internet of 2.3B (Real) People
– 700K New Users Added Everyday
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10. … and Women in Particular
• 10% more time spent
online than men
• 50+% of Facebook
users
• 56% of Twitter users
• 70% of Pinterest users
• 60% of ecommerce
dollars
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11. Societal Impact – the Good
• The obvious benefits
• Increased productivity, efficiency, life quality, and convenience
• Connecting people (new lifestyles, global citizens)
•…
• Internet style peer network concept for the society at large?
(IHT)
• Some of these can cut both ways if overdone
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12. Societal Impact – the Bad
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13. Societal Impact – the Ugly
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14. “In Norway we have managed to produce a
terrorist who is inspired by the Internet.”
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15. The Old and New Digital Divide
* Small countries/regions can suffer from lack of appropriate services
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16. Needed -- User Sovereignty
• Term borrowed from Mitchell Baker (Chairwoman of
Mozilla)
• Putting USER first and center
• But how?
– “Bill of Rights” for Internet users?
– Promote, implement, and enforce?
– Different jurisdictions worldwide?
– Cultural diversity?
– … seemingly endless questions
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17. 2: New Monopolists
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18. Will History Repeat Itself?
• Platform war (Microsoft Windows won by mid 1990s)
– Then the browser threatened to render Windows irrelevant
• Browser war (Microsoft IE won, over Netscape, by 2000)
– Then Mozilla Firefox came along to re-open the landscape
– MacOS and iOS eating away Windows’s dominance
recently
• Mobile device wars (ongoing)
– The new (and most significant) portal to the Internet
– In really mobile OS wars (about eco-system, not hardware)
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19. Internet on the Desktop
-- Open and Standard-Based Platforms
Desktop - The Open Web
provides user choice and has
unleashed innovation
Web Platform (Desktop)
Internet
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20. Internet on Mobile
-- Closed and Proprietary Platforms
Mobile- iOS and Android locked-down platforms, with their
native-apps, proprietary app stores, and capricious
developer rules, making Web technology less relevant.
Desktop - The Open Web
provides user choice and has
unleashed innovation
Web Platform Proprietary Platforms
Internet
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21. Monopolies in the (Re)Making
• Devices (Apple vs Samsung vs everyone else)
• Patents (Apple vs Samsung vs Google)
• Software interfaces (aka APIs) (Oracle vs Google)
• Hardware interfaces (new iPhone connector)
• Locked-in eco-systems (iOS vs Android vs others?)
– Apps (run on one vendor platform, approved by the vendor)
– Services (maps etc., selected and approved by the vendor)
– Content (AppleTV, prescribed by the vendor)
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22. “We shall defend our
market share, whatever
the cost may be; we shall
fight on the App Stores, we
shall fight on the network
discounts, we shall fight on
screen size and resolution, we
shall fight on the camera,
we shall never surrender.”
Steve Ballmer letter to
MSFT shareholder:
“devices and services”
10/09/2012
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23. Needed -- Internet Governance
• Laws, rules, and regulations --
copyright, patent, data, privacy, competition, behavior, …
• But we cannot just sit and wait … we must fight in the
marketplace with open, innovative, and competitive
technologies/products/ethics
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24. Firefox OS
Bringing the Open Web to Mobile Devices
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25. Open Web Device (OWD) with Firefox OS
Growing Ecosystem of Supporters and Supply Chain
 Carriers：Telefonica、Deutsche Telekom、Sprint、Telenor、América Móvil、
Smart、Etisalat、Telecom Italia
 Chipset manufacturers：Qualcomm、Spreadtrum
 OEM：TCL(Alcatel)、ZTE
 Internet companies：Facebook、Twitter
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26. Open Web Devices (OWD) for All
Wave 2
Brand/ advance
200 features
Seekers
Invoice Price ($)
NOKIA 500 FAY
Samsung Wave 1
S5360 Galaxy
LG Optimus
L3 E400
Value for
money
100 Seekers
OWD
NOKIA ASHA 302
Price
feature
Seekers phones $8
MOTOROLA
SILVERQ (EX430)
wholesale
Alcatel OT 900 (caijing.com.cn
50 ZTE E821 10/2012)
LG C365
From feature phone to smartphone
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27. 3. Power Shift to the BRICs
• Production and consumption rapidly shifting to emerging
countries
• Core innovation in Internet technology still centered around
Silicon Valley (with perhaps the biggest exception of ARM)
• European products might still have market share today but
not much mind share (bad for tomorrow)
– Which European companies are relevant in Internet
technologies?
• Example: Telefonica/Mozilla/ZTE/TCL for Brazil and beyond
• If the BRICs (and others including Japan) are not shooting
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28. Internet Innovation – All Eyes on the Valley
Twitter
Youtube
LinkedIn
Zynga
Salesforce
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29. Challenges For Europeans (and in fact ALL)
• Internet products are very much cultural as well as
technical
– The years of one-(English)-product-sold-worldwide is over
• R&D effective only when by people who understand the
local culture, customs, and requirements
– The Europeans debate over roaming charges (single SIM
card)
– The Chinese frequent travellers use dual-SIM phones
– The Brazilians use Quad-SIM phones everyday
– No wonder a Chinese company (Spreadtrum) invented the
first multi-SIM technology
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30. Decline Is a Slooow Process
-- “The Netherlands Peaked 100+ Years Ago”
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31. But the “Barbarians” Will Come
• Facebook’s China Problem (Fortune, September 2012)
– “Perhaps Facebook’s real problem isn’t getting into
China, but keeping China social media at bay.”
• US Congress committee report on ZTE and Huawei
• The “barbarians” can come from not only China but also
elsewhere/everywhere in the world
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32. When They Do It Will Not Be Pretty
• China is “Exhibit A” of a law-less internet environment
– A popular security software vendor faking a Microsoft critical
patch to fool users into installing the vendor’s browser
software
– A popular browser vendor using its browser to “crawl” user
data to feed back to its search engine
– A common practice to “extract” a competitor’s critical code
– Just “delete” your competitor’s software
• Can they be constrained by local laws and
regulations, especially if they operate offshore?
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33. To Conclude
• Establish user sovereignty
– Close the digital divide (old and new)
• Impose and improve Internet governance
• Face up to European chanllenges
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34. Thanks!
Q&A
lgong@mozilla.com
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