A Gallant attempt at making IT interesting...
Just in time for Thoughtleader Thursday, John Gallant, editorial director of Network World, in Boston, takes on my recent post about deadly dull IT markets.
In his column, Mr Gallant says some very kind words about SVW (making me blush), and he argues passionately that information technology is strategic and even exciting.
From NetworkWorld Weblogs: Agreeing to disagree on the future of enterprise IT.
I had met with Mr Gallant and Geoffrey Moore when they were doing the rounds recently to raise interest in their forthcoming Vortex IT conference. Mr Moore has a new book due out early next year.
Mr Moore continues to believe that information technology is strategic. "It just has to be" he said, "otherwise our living standards are in jeopardy." I asked if it was his personal living standards he was worried about, but in fact not, it was all our living standards.
[BTW, I think Mr Moore is dead-on right, all our personal living standards will decline. It is because information technology has helped accelerate the natural processes within capitalism that constantly seek to trade and thus redistribute wealth globally.]
Things seem very simple to me: strategy is strategic, not information technology. Information technology supports your business strategy. In the most cost effective, agile way, ideally. And that means open source open platform.
Apple and its iPod are often used as an example of a successful technology driven business.
But is there anything information-technology-strategic about Apple's iPod? Or even anything exciting about the technology? There are a hundred makers of MP3 players. A player is just a hard drive and a chip.
Selling music online? Heck, I can do that right here with a link.
What *was* strategic about the Apple iPod business was Steve Jobs' brilliant strategy to marry the hardware device with the web service with the desktop. And that kind of strategy is very difficult to copy, (which makes it even more strategic ;-)
I sometimes wonder what was strategic about the SABRE airplane reservations system, the poster child of the IT-is-strategic movement? It seems to me that American Airlines, the owner, had simply increased its opportunities to offer quotes on the search pages. Strategic placement of quotes on the page is a great strategy -- supported by IT.
IT strategy now
I don't think IT has ever been strategic. Except maybe now, if you count the following approach: Don't take on any commercial proprietary software if you can help it.
This has become so common in Silicon Valley. I cannot tell you how many big (Google) and smaller (Become.com) companies tell me, we use Linux, MySQL, etc. We are huge open source open platform users, we have virtually no commercial software. That's the kind of IT strategy I'm seeing.
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Here you go gentlemen, let me help you in your quest with a free advertisement for the Vortex conference:
But please be aware gentle readers, it is invitation only but if you register by September 23 you can get a preferred rate.
VORTEX 2005: October 24-26, The Palace Hotel San Francisco, CA
Join John Gallant, Geoffrey Moore and key stakeholders in enterprise IT -- including IT industry executives, up-and-coming technology disruptors and investors-to reset and renew the agenda for the $1 trillion enterprise IT market.
Click here for more information about VORTEX
