Plasmoid prognostication

Let’s put the following four ideas in a blender:

1. During my day job (which is also unsurprisingly my night job and weekend job), we create re-useable java portlets for our enterprise (this decade’s version of applets and EJBs).  As the size of this portlet repository grows, and as the ubiquity and re-use of such portlets grow, so the value of our contributions increase.
2. I knew making iPhone apps would be popular, but I had no idea how fast the number of apps would reach well into the thousands.
3. Aaron recently wrote a great entry on community growth.  Don’t leave expansion up to chance and serendipity.  As I recently heard a lexicographer on TED state (paraphrasing) on serendipity: “When you find things you weren’t looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult.”  Of course, when is “building clocks” with Plasma a metaphor, and when is it also just “building clocks“? 🙂
4. Nokia’s Qt announcement in conjunction with bindings progress will open the door to many new contributors.  And what better way to cut your teeth than with a small-self-contained app?  To me, they continue to “do the right thing” in the post-acquisition process.  And if there’s one thing that manufacturing giants get, it’s economies of scale, re-usability and target markets.

So what do we have?  In my mind, a huge repository of cross-platform apps/plasmoids that can be on your desktop or on your phone.  What I am not saying: that there will not be significant hurdles; that this should be some “for-profit” store to charge for them.  I just look to the day when a Nokia phone owner can browse a huge repository of plasmoids/gadgets/widgets and then go home and use the same familiar ones on their desktop.  Will WebKit in Qt allow Google Gadgets et al along for the ride and take some of the air out of Android?

Plasmoids and maybe Plasma (or derivatives) itself on everything from 3″ phone screens to 30″ LCD panels, with every size of netbook and laptop inbetween.  This, gentle readers, is why you stay forward thinking on technology (Plasma framework decisions) and keep your usability experts happy.  This can and will be massive.

Disclaimer: I like to daydream and overly simplify, and have no affiliation with Plasma development (which is a good thing for everyone involved).