The Coming Change In Enterprise & Technology

Robert Metcalfe has an interesting uptake :
To the question what surprises are in store for IT users in 2007? Bob responds:

From my point of view, there's little new in IT, particularly in enterprise software. Video might take Computerworld readers by surprise. There are three major forces - video, mobility and embedded - all three of which are nipping at the edge of IT. Video burdens IP networks, and they haven't quite seen the value proposition, but CIOs will eventually have to embrace it instead of fighting it. For mobility, the platform of choice is increasingly cell phones and less desktops. Cell phones are now a platform for enterprise applications. Embedded software, such as RFID, hasn't quite made it yet. To make enterprise applications more aware of inventory or the supply chain through RFID and sensor networks - of the three things, this is the furthest away from impacting CIOs.

“There's been a huge gap between business owners and IT in terms of knowledge, passion, etc. That gap is narrowly closing in companies where CIOs and the rest of the CXOs really come together in a shared vision of what needs to happen. It's going to happen in more than one in 10 companies; it's starting to happen now. I'm very optimistic that more and more stories will be told about how they're fused together to create a 21st-century company”.

Almost everyone in the industry is pointing to YouTube acquisition by Google as a harbinger of things to come, Bob Cringley thinks that Feedburner is hot.
While covering the tumult that is happening in the enterprise software space, I recently wrote, atleast in respect of the enterprise software, which is closer to the heart of CIO’s its clear – as I had always been telling - while vendors are addressing market realities to keep their industry vibrant and with consolidation fever ahead - one could clearly hear the voice :whether customers would benefit a lot because of this, add the need to make more innovation happen and absorb faster. No,I am not talking about Marc Benioff finding SAP innovation free, while I certainly agree with his perspective that observers tend to overestimate the creativity and innovation that entrenched technology companies can bring to a particular problem and underestimate the effect of business-model conflicts that lurk behind the scenes ( as applicable to all majors). Innovation need not not be always of the disruptive type but every type of Innovation counts. In today’s hypercompetitive world ,simply put innovation is non-negotiable and innovation streak is of very high value to enterprises.