Exactly a year ago I announced the title for my annual “State of the ICT Nation” speech for the Prince’s Trust Technology Leadership Group delivered in Sept 10. I settled on Earthquake. I said at the time “Earthquakes don’t just happen. They are the end result of huge pressures built up over long periods of time. Indeed, it is very like the seismic shifts that are taking place right now in the ICT industry as the tectonic plates of the old and new business models rub up against each other with earth-shattering consequences.”
Since then I, and I suspect all readers, have learnt rather a lot more about Earthquakes - what with Christchurch and now the quite awful events in Japan. The world is (I read) going through a cycle where it is experiencing more earthquakes of greater severity than for 50-100 years. Please, I do not mean to make light of the disaster which has hit so many in Japan, but everything more I learn about Earthquakes supports my use of the title last year.
The IT industry is approaching its 50th anniversary which I have always defined as starting at the launch of the IBM S/360 in Apr 1964. For almost all of those years I have experienced first hand the moves in the ‘techonic plates’. Indeed for most of that time I’ve written about them as an analyst and, if I can be a little big headed, forecast most of them. But, with hindsight, all these changes have been relatively small and evolutionary ‘seismic shifts’. They have been like earthquakes on a Richter scale of less than 8.
Now, I feel our IT world is being rocked by an Earthquake of quite unparalleled scale. On premise software – the norm for 50 years – is now dying as it moves to the cloud. On premise hardware (from the data centre to the PC) is replaced by hosting centres and MIDs. Communications has moved from fixed line voice to mobile data. IT employment has moved from onshore users to offshore outsourcers. Media of every type has moved from the physical to cloud-based digital services. Social technologies are not a debating point - they are THE way of life for most of online users. I could go on and on with examples of changes in the ways of doing things which have been with us ever since the start of IT.
I’ve also had my major earthquake moment in that I am now sick and tired of telling sceptical audiences that “The times they are a-changing” (Bob Dylan 1964) because that time has now arrived. Things really have changed. The old days and old ways are past. The future finally has arrived.
Which is why my State of the ICT Nation speech this year on 21st Sept 11 is entitled THINGS HAVE CHANGED (Bob Dylan 1999).