Month: January 2008

Gartner’s IT predictions

/ Robert Pease / 1 Comment

Our friends at Gartner have released their latest set of IT predictions.  Full release here.  Here’s a few highlights: 

  1. By 2012, 50 per cent of traveling workers will leave their notebooks at home in favour of other devices.
  2. By 2012, 80 per cent of all commercial software will include elements of open-source technology.
  3. By 2012, at least one-third of business application software spending
    will be as service subscription instead of as product license.
  4. By 2011, early technology adopters will forgo capital expenditures and
    instead purchase 40 per cent of their IT infrastructure as a service.
  5. By 2010, end-user preferences will decide as much as half of all software, hardware and services acquisitions made by IT.

Reinforces many of the IT trends we are seeing.  I personally can’t wait until I can leave my notebook at home although I think there are hurdles there.  My Blackberry works great to monitor, read, and respond but isn’t all that great to do things like writing and number crunching.  We’ll see…

Not in Davos this week

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Just in case there was any wild speculation out there, I am not at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.  I am, however, open to an invite for next year so if you are headed that way and need a travel partner let me know.  Lots of fanfare around this event for sure (as well as fodder for those that think the world is controlled by a dozen people) but any forum where people can have informed conversation about issues without punditry and talking points (to a degree) is a worthwhile endeavor.  The Aspen Institute is another such forum for informed conversation.

Assuming that in a year’s time I won’t become a rock star, head of state, or sovereign wealth fund manager (yes, aiming low this year), I thought I would pose the same "Davos Question" that attendees can answer and capture on video.   

Before I do, think about what this is all about – world & economic leaders can make a point, have it recorded, and instantly globally distributed via our friends at Google/YouTube in the same way that anybody can record their thoughts and share them with this forum.  A conversation where none was possible before…pretty cool.

I’m not sure that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai (below) ever imagined that he would be doing this.  Proof that YouTube (or any video sharing site for that matter) can be more than an on-line version America’s Funniest Home Videos.

“What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?”

Good news (sort of) for tech spending

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It’s predicted to get harder to sell IT this year…which is better than impossible I suppose.  According to this NY Times article and research from IDC:

"Overall growth in technology spending may fall from 7 percent last year to 4 percent or less this year"

The backdrop on this is that it’s not like spending has been going bonkers over the past 5 years especially in enterprise software and more specifically B2B investments.  I had a recent chat with the head of e-business at a large distribution company where he lamented the continued "hangover" from the tech bubble and the empty promises (and bad investments) from so much vaporware.

Improved access and more economically tolerable consumption models (SaaS/on-demand) make this a less difficult (but not easy) road.  Hubspan (yes, a shameless plug but our strategy is relevant to my point) is approaching this with a blend of self-service and managed service capabilities.  As budgets tighten further, companies will seek more economical ways to address the B2B agenda be that through outsourcing B2B projects completely or choosing to take on initiatives with a more attractive on-demand consumption approach versus the big dollars historically required for integration software, servers, and staff.

A crash course on how youth uses technology

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Watched parts of this last night.  Frontline has a new program called "Growing Up Online."  You should watch it (which you can do via the site…very cool).

It reinforces many things I have picked up from previous research into Generation Y and their communication habits.  What struck me most is right at the end, one of the recently graduated high school seniors talks about the way he needs to unplug for bit because it is too much to deal with.  Wow.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future.  Is it possible that we will exhaust our on-line preoccupation?  I now rarely use IM, email is broken for sure, and text messaging works best for close contacts. 

One of my favorite quotes

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"…all glory is fleeting"

I was reminded of this great quote by General George C. Patton today.  Humility (ironically not really Patton’s long suit) is a significant leadership quality and it is important keep things in perspective as we go about our daily lives.   

The entire quote is below:

"For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."

 Also, check this site out.  I found it when I was looking for the full text of this.  Great follow-on quote from former Sec. of State James Baker.

Towards true self-service

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Shameless plug here for Hubspan, but Mark Hall over at Computerworld did a nice write up on us after we had the chance to speak.  I thought the article title of "self-service middleware" was really good and fits our on-demand software message nicely.   We’ve had a multi-tenant, on-demand approach from the beginning and our self-service efforts are focusing on allowing our customers to do things beyond data mapping to things like change management, e-commerce enablement, and business activity monitoring themselves.  Simple integration is sort of an oxymoron although there are certainly basic data mapping needs (and tools) out there.  Our technology  really shines when there are more advanced needs to synchronize, correlate, and choreograph information flows at the business process level.

Also, our eight B2B New Year’s resolutions have gotten a bit of coverage recently.

Washington’s next boom industry

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Coming soon to Washington state – distilled spirits.   This story from the  Seattle Times lays out how upcoming legislative changes will start a new industry around distilled spirits in the state.  You know whiskey, gin, vodka, etc.  After seeing the remarkably simple process for making gin at Plymouth Gin in the UK, I have wanted to give it a shot.  Now I may have my chance…