CTO Blog
I expect you will have read Ron Tolido’s post on seven very specific IT areas to watch in 2012 . Well, there are some things which are traditional and one of them in this industry is to start the new year with a set of predictions about which new technologies will be important in the year ahead. Well here are my thoughts on the topic that takes us beyond the current three terms that are enjoying attention as being at the center of the hype cycle: ‘cloud’, ‘mobility’, and ‘big data’. None of these three is a single technology, instead there is a clutch of new technologies that are behind these three headline grabbers.
However, there is one mega trend to remark on, but it does have various names that make it less easy to identify exactly what it is; some talk of the ‘bring your own revolution’, ‘the tablet revolution’, ‘the consumerization of IT’, or even ‘the post-PC era’. It can be summed up as the shift from the computer being at the core of technology development to people becoming the central focus. Here are ten technology-centric groupings of activities, products and themes that support this change:
1. The Core Change: People rather than IT are the new focus
New forms of connection and delivery enable users to drive their own choices about where and how they work, find information, indeed even choose what software they download and use. This intensely personally focused use of technology underpins more intellectually based and decentralized activities and in particular has started a revolution in how the ‘front office’ activities of a business and its staff can function free from the restraining infrastructure of an enterprise desktop and office.
Examples: the consumerization of IT, bring your own, the post-PC era
2. Intuitive presentation and usability
The shift away from the PC and its attendant keyboard and mouse towards more portable devices used whenever and wherever to suit circumstances has introduced new interactive techniques based on touch screens and gestures that also suit a change in using wider media for interactions beyond mere text using a keyboard. The drive to display information in optimal ways for the interpretation and interaction by a human rather than data for a computer is underpinning a new generation of ‘services’ usually called ‘apps’.
Examples: smartphones and tablets, gesture-driven, increasing multi-media
3. From big IT to small services
The shift towards personal choice and assembly of small granular services rather than enterprise level deployment of monolithic applications changes the development methods and methodology. Large numbers of small services can be rapidly orchestrated into chosen processes, and equally quickly changed again. Solutions can be small, experimental and innovative, while deployments don’t have to be big bang everyone-at-once affairs. These new services will present new challenges and organizations need to make sure they don’t underestimate the numbers of services or the complexity of managing this environment.
Example: the creation of App Shops and creative developers of services
4. User-driver environments
The three previous groupings have given rise to completely new user-centric environments as the origins of Web 2.0 people rather than content-centric technologies have matured and grown. Social networks allow the person to define their topics of interest and involvement with the ability to ‘receive’ selectively, as opposed to email where the sender is in control. Huge networks are developing around the ‘topic’ linkages as information moves to include ‘collective consciousnesses of the social network’.
Example: social CRM, social networks, external Web-based services
5. Big data means more than a lot of data
Location and context-aware rich Internet applications are bringing both new requirements in the collection and use of information which, in turn, means a wide range of data formats including blending multi-media in with existing traditional data definitions. Intelligence takes on a new meaning around the rapid searching and assembly of unstructured data triggered by an event or circumstances.
Example: NoSQL databases; search engines, image recognition
6. Tight-coupled computers to loose-coupled people
Computers and applications ‘push’ structured process data integrated through a predetermined set of fixed ‘tight-coupled’ connections defined by client-server architecture. In contrast, people interact and ‘pull’ unstructured information and services on a cloud or Web architecture, which is defined as ‘loose-coupled’. The former is supported by technology-based integration of computer systems through enterprise architecture. For the latter, the user and devices become the focus, with management of ‘services’ the new integration issue. When using the ‘loose-coupled’ Web/Cloud the user chooses where to go, versus a traditional enterprise application environment, which offers only predetermined transactional paths.
Example: the ‘true’ cloud based on the Internet/Web, second generation browsers
7. Development and deployment methods
Small, personalized services that will run on cloud platforms, and are therefore simple scripting assemblies, require a radically different approach to development than traditional, monolithic applications which need to interface with operating systems to ensure performance and security. The
length of time for development and deployment is also a reflection on the length of time it will stay in service, i.e. a six-month traditional application development may stay in service for many years with ongoing maintenance requiring full documentation, whereas a week-long service development and deployment may have a life of only a few months and then be scrapped rather than maintained.
Example: agile development, Force.com, and the rise of platform-as-a-service
8. Next generation data centers deliver true cloud
The shift from deterministic numbers of applications and systems in a deterministic, traditional IT environment to the ability to provide totally flexible allocation of computational resources on demand defines the ‘next generation data center’, an industry-recognized term. In addition to the obvious flexibility required to support the people inside the enterprise working in new ways, the radical shift in requirements towards participation in a common external environment with other enterprise data centers as part of the ‘true’ cloud environment creates the need for a new ‘cloud services’ layer. The work of the Open Data Center Alliance, and other similar bodies, focuses on developing common standards for next generation data centers to host services whether from internal or external sources.
Example: standardized and online, ‘bare metal’ based running cloud layer, increasingly green
9. Mobility in every sense of the term
The rich variety of devices using wireless connectivity, either 3G or WiFi, sever the old ‘fixed’ understanding of what and how a device – usually a PC – is connected into a corporate enterprise network. The term ‘mobile’ has tended to be used to describe delivering a traditional client-server application onto an external device with intermittent connectivity requiring complex synchronization and resulting in data held on the device outside the enterprise. Mobility is usually referred to as being browser cloud-based with little or no data being held on the device, allowing any browser connectivity and interaction with any cloud service at any time by any connection type e.g. total mobility in all the elements.
Example: Android smartphones and tablets, Apple iPod, iPhone and iPad and SAP Mobility Platform
10. The redefinition of security
Security is clearly a major issue as the expansion of activities moves outside the enterprise invoking wider interactions in semi-public environments with many unknown combinations of people and services. However, traditional IT based on transactions i.e. enterprise, data-rich environments inside the firewall, demands its own approaches to protecting the enterprise data center model around firewall techniques. But the new external world cannot function if its devices are subjected to the locked down, VPN-connected demands necessary to protect both PCs and enterprise data. A new and very vibrant set of approaches and technologies is delivering a new and appropriate governance and security model.
Example: Jericho Security, closed App Shop models
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.
As always a great article with clear vision!
Andy, is it right to say, that in coming 2-3 years, enterpprises will generate half of their web sales via social presence and mobile applications? I am asking this because the uptake of smart devices and cloud services drive demand for collaboration and providing thoughts of choice, and in that context, social media is easy to master and access, while at the same time, enterprises seek to generate new revenue streams via new mobile capabilities and social network channels (facebook, twitter, and youtube) etc.
Bring you own device programs are rising, and the trend is impacting number of enterprises and will take a commonplace, resulting majority of devices to be employee owned.
I think the industry wishes it knew the answer to that question! This came up in a client session yesterday and my reply was that there were two parts to the possible answer. 1 the availability of an enabling environment and that can be accurately measured, and 2 the answer as to how much moved to use the platform lay in the uptake by the ‘sellers’ in making use of this and therefore wasn’t mine to answer! So for part one the fact is that apple and google as the two market leaders in devices saw an astonishing 6 million plus of devices commissioned and 242 million downloads over the christmas to new year period says the enabling environment is there. Add to this that amazon sold over 1 million ebooks in the same period capturing just over 90% of the market, and consider how apple own the tablet market, and looks like google will own the smart phone and you can see control of whole market areas changing hands. That suggests that other players in various markets will simply have to make huge efforts to be there, and that competition might create the scale of change you comment upon.
It’s been great to see so many new comments out here on different technology prospectives. What is my understanding that the availibility of enabling market provides empowered buyers demand a new level of customer obsession. The age of customers – are enterprises ready to compete?. The current market has widened to a point where customers are being introduced to new technologies, and devices, and all successful contenders the likes Apple, Google, Best Buy and Amazon will be more customer obsessed, they will put budget dollars from areas that traditionally created dominance and invest more in real time customer intelligence, customer service and customer experience and more in interactive marketing. As you mentioned in your no#1 category – people, a key element of supply have power over technologies (in an enabling environment, a key element in any product is people.
So back to the reality – are enterprises ready for this change or able to follow innovative companies?
Personally I think that the whole topic is well summed up and presented in the latest book from John Hagel III and John Seely Brown called ‘the power of pull’ which kind of sums up the whole point in that companies should be driven by and respond to the clients and markets. The book can be found at Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Power-Pull-Smartly-Things-Motion/dp/0465019358 The book has been endorsed by a lot of famous names from bill Clinton to the CEO of salesforce.com and the founder of SAP. The business school folks have been active in bringing this to business managers and this will be the change force I think!
Andy –
Great starters for 2012.
Do you see any impact on Microsoft -SKYPE & Windows 7/8 phones/Nokia in the consumerization of IT & its repurcussion on Enterprise? Is RIM doing anything to keeo or increase their declining market share?
Do you see any browser strategy from big players – to have any unified view across gaming, phone , tablet and personal computers?
Mmm big product and big companies to be commenting on, and a lot of people wondering similar questions. Right now I think we are seeing that ‘mobility’ has meant using new devices in new ways and apple and Google have created classic early adopter positions that currently look unassailable. In comparison the venders of what I will call traditional technology in the form of phones or even tablets running the more traditional operating systems are losing as the buyers are either wanting to make the break through and shift to the wholly new or are content not to replace what the have. BUT the game is not over, and as increasingly enterprises acknowledge the shift, and even bring your own, is when a degree of the traditional will re establish itself. The CEO of Forrester in his keynote at Le Web before Christmas stated that he though a Microsoft able to support a users wishes on one side and an enterprises needs on the other through virtual devices and management offering a cohesive five screen strategy around phone, tablet, gammer, pc and TV would be a powerful new force in a market that will be looking for more maturity in the management and use of their devices.
Good one and more practical. However, apart from #7, everything else seems to be indirect influence-rs on the Enterprise. Enterprises, especially Financial Services hold a lot of inertia in the mindset and environment more because of the fear of change (and ofcourse the costs involved). How much do you think is going to change? My question is more from internal IT perspective as opposed to consumer facing IT.
Yes the reality is that adoption is always dependant on how strong the drivers to overcome normal human and event inertia become! As you say the list are enablers and I hold a view based on the experiences of the shift to PCs from Mini Computers and from Mainframe to Mini that those who operate and are trying to optimize the status quo will for some good reasons try to hold back but will be forced into the change simply because the business model of their enterprise will be changed by external market forces. I.e. the change on the internal IT from departmental mini and corporate data centre to client server and ERP occurred because business managers found new competitive ways of working and drove business process re engineering as a business model change, challenging the technologists to keep up and deliver on it. Today when we hear that more than 70 million tablets were sold in 2011, more than 242 million app downloads took place between Christmas and the new year we can recognize that people are changing their expectations on how they will be serviced as customer and business managers are changing their views on how to compete for that business. Online business models in other industries have forced the change on the slower competitors, so I expect that will be the force from outside for the change rather than an internal adoption decision or rate.
Making a comment here and then looking for your response. Re: Cloud services, many companies will physically scale down their data centers in physical square footage they need to house servers. Then the personnel needed to run those servers go to…where? the cloud services provider? And they no longer are dirct employees of that client company and work for the cloud provider. That intellectual talent becomes estranged from the original company they worked for and goes to the cloud provider. I’m looking at this from a human resources perspective which should be considered by a company who will, in the long run, decrease costs from the physical space and the IT personnel they no longer need to retain – it transitions to procuring cloud services. Less real estate and FTEs with offsetting costs in cloud services. Cloud service providers would then see an increased need to hire those resources no longer needed by client companies.
Comments appreciated. Thanks.
Good point and I will answer around two trends. In the first there is a growing trend not to invest capital in traditional assets such as data centre which are not core to your business and its models. In other words focus investment and management of investment around your core business model and its competitive differentiation. This is inescapable and therefore the challenge you identify arises.
The second part of the argument is around the new focuses being people and intellectual property which isolates what is the real value? The knowledge of what a data centre can do for a business, and how to rapidly seize new capabilities and innovatively apply them to your business is the key people value of those you would chose to have in your business. Whereas possession of the asset itself and the people to operate in a certain way might just be a limitation to your flexibility.
Working for a company whose core focus is the provision of and abilities to operate a data centre for those whose business it is not might be a better and more rewarding career option!
Nice compilation!