CTO Blog
I really couldn’t let this week pass without commenting on the bunch of announcements from the telecom and phone sector. The iPhone rolls out in the UK of course, but that’s old news, and been covered well enough already. The news that did interested me is the Google Android approach to the market, and the Nokia approach with its Ovi Portal for Internet based services. However I want to comment on these announcements in what I think is a different way from all the other blogs have read on these moves.
The updated news this week on the Ovi Portal is that Vodafone, who I would have classed as a potential competitor in the provision of Internet services, has decided to team with Nokia, as has Telefonica. Taken together, and assuming that the three partners will now bundle and share their existing Internet services such as the Vodafone Live! Portal with its strong focus on music, this represents a real force in the market. It may well have been driven by the Google move with Android as the Google approach of a bundled operating system and basic services for cell phones looks like a real market disrupting move reminiscent of Microsoft and the PC (and yes the sharp eyed will notice the author’s name, and it is my son, but hopefully you will agree that it’s a thoughtful post on this topic from his cell phone / mobility blog site).
So what is my different take on this? Well I want to point out that we are now entering the fifth era of our industry;
- 1) the calculating computer
- 2) the programmable mainframe
- 3) the departmental mini application
- 4) the information PC and now
- 5) the People centric Web.
In each of the eras the solutions were designed around the key element, and in the first four this meant different types of machines. What Web 2.0 really means is designing solutions around people, just consider the principle elements; Social Networks, Social Tagging, WiKis, Blogs and MashUps. The interfacing, and use, is all people based with the machine hidden as much as possible.
You can take this further by remarking that Software as a Software, SaaS, offers subscriptions to people rather than licensing software for use on a machine! So should we look surprised that the action seems to be shifting towards phones? After all a phone is a distinctly friendly human interface device and is designed to be carried around by a person, not something you can do so well with a desktop or even a notebook PC. On the last point some of the latest notebooks seem to be shrinking towards phone sizes and proudly even boast about the use of telecom connectivity technology!
The point about designing solutions around a people model and not around PC Server model may go some way towards answering another frequently raised question; why don’t IT professionals get Web 2.0 use in Business, even if they use it in their home life? Well if you have spent your professional life concentrating on making sure solutions are deployed in accordance with one set of principles then its difficult to change, especially if you don’t immediately grasp this change in what is the key element to design round.
Am I right in this bold assertion? Looking forward to some good posts!!
About the author
Capgemini Global Chief Technology Officer, Andy is a member of the Capgemini Group management board and advises on all aspects of technology-driven market changes, together with being a member of the Policy Board for the British Computer Society. Andy is the author of many white papers, and the co-author three books that have charted the current changes in technology and its use by business starting in 2006 with ‘Mashup Corporations’ detailing how enterprises could make use of Web 2.0 to develop new go to market propositions. This was followed in May 2008 by Mesh Collaboration focussing on the impact of Web 2.0 on the enterprise front office and its working techniques, then in 2010 “Enterprise Cloud Computing: A Strategy Guide for Business and Technology leaders” co-authored with well-known academic Peter Fingar and one of the leading authorities on business process, John Pyke. The book describes the wider business implications of Cloud Computing with the promise of on-demand business innovation. It looks at how businesses trade differently on the web using mash-ups but also the challenges in managing more frequent change through social tools, and what happens when cloud comes into play in fully fledged operations. Andy was voted one of the top 25 most influential CTOs in the world in 2009 by InfoWorld and is grateful to readers of Computing Weekly who voted the Capgemini CTOblog the best Blog for Business Managers and CIOs each year for the last three years.
Hi Andy.
There seems to be a typo in the post: “Software as a Software” should read “Software as a Service”
iPhones for our work phones? Could we replace our work laptops? The iPhone, or similar, is not necessarily the best device for responding to large numbers of e-mails, for producing PowerPoint presentations, for writing long, detailed, complex discussion documents… hmmm, I think I might be on to something.
firstly thanks to Tim for spotting that my slip of the mind. Yup you are right Tim should have been Software as a Service.
Secondly, i can’t be the only person who finds that the emails from their phone are shorter and more to the point than their emails from their PC? guess that is the secret to IM !
Taking a more serious line though i do find that i switch back to a PC at the end of the day for the handfull of emails that have big attachments. As my Treo 750 fully supports both powerpoint and word there are two reasons for this, the first is how quickly accepting such large downloads burns through my fixed monthly allowance on my phone bill, and second because it runs down the battery far to fast.
Both problems should be solvable with new releases and competive changes in who and how i get my service.
Whilst I agree with the majority of sentiment, I think we have evolved through 6 generations of approximately 10 years each 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s. As someone who grew up in the 80s revolvution ‘Personal Computer’, but worked in parallel with the 70s (Mini) and 60s (Programmable mainframe), I think we actually jumped into the person centric PC, to a collision of Network centric computing (both within organisations and with the Internet) as an interim step before we got to where we are approaching today the People Centric Web.
In terms of emails, IM and Phone mail are short and sweet, but also prone to errors and misunderstandings. BLOGS and ‘formal’ email support more thoughtful communication – which I hope we still have time for in the People centric web!
And we still have all the overlaps in technology and i think we still will see that for a very long time! so yes i was making it sound too simple and seperated to make the point and you are right.
The challege i really wanted to make was to our thinking in how we design solutions.
I would like to question is the answer a server based application with browser access, in favour of thinking how people and communities might want to interact in a variety of different ways.