2011 promises to be amazingly better.
Pay no attention to the ads on TV and in tech shops promoting value added tech services like:
- disk defragmenting and repair
- adware, spam, spyware removal
- system tweaks to improve speed and stop crashes
- virus protection, then removal when the protection fails
- data protection and system backups
These are remnants of a dying IT infrastructure that is fading fast. There are estimates that as much as one third of IT spending is wasted. My experience leads me to believe the number may be higher. We have barely begun to scratch the surface of what is possible today, while the complexities of the past remain ingrained upon the subconscious as a sort of inescapable status quo.
There is a better way that gets better all the time, and is now too good to ignore. Build the intelligence into the machine to perform mundane procedures. Burden technology, not people with repetitive tasks. Improve interfaces by giving people more of what they want, and less of what they don't. Apple continues to innovate, pushing the envelope of what is possible, achieving record levels of customer satisfaction.
"our goal is to make a really breakthrough great product.. ..in every industry that we compete in. Then to drive the cost down, while constantly making the products better at the same time. " -- Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs October 18, 2010
The irony of the past decade is that business leaders, who should inherently believe in the ability of the free market to deliver better products, had so little confidence in the forward progress of information technology. It was end users, consumers in the marketplace regularly voting their pocketbooks that supported a tech revolution that is just beginning to make inroads into the enterprise. The flood gates are opening up.
2010 Landmarks
- In August, Apple reported shipping their 100 millionth touch screen device
- In October, Apple passed Microsoft to become the most valuable tech company on earth.
- Last quarter 2010, Apple was third in computer shipments, behind HP and Dell, not including iPads.
- Including iPads as consumer PC's would put Apple first in PC shipment volume for December 2010
The differences between old and new ways of information technology are many and varied. The gap is a chasm so vast that it is impossible to describe in terms other than "you will know it when you see it". Folllowing are a couple of quick examples.
Real World Examples of Tech Simplification
Podcast production and distribution
Podcasting is creating, packaging and distributing video to a wide audience. A real world example being capture of classroom lectures for distribution to student athletes who are traveling. If there is a way of piecing this together outside the world of Apple, it is not getting much press. Very likely that is because within the world of Apple, it is point and click simple at no great expense.
Scheduling resources online, some for public access, some for in-house use only.
The old existing way, enter resources and users into a spreadsheet, match them up, send the spreadsheet to the web devs, web devs update info as time allows, and develop and maintain a list of logins and users who are allowed to access protected content.
A wiki calendar on OS X server was used for a replacement, and removes all the above requirements. It serves up an online calendar which works in real time, alleviating synchronization and logistics problems, eliminating the need for intermediate technologies unrelated to the task at hand, no convoluted licensing schemes required.
Creating and maintaining a publicly accessible calendar is point and click simple. In this case, the list of approved users were already stored in directory services, so restricting access is a simple drag and drop of the groups to the calendars. Calendar users may view, edit, and create calendars in accordance with a designed permissions structure from any location with Web access.
The List Goes On
To attempt to list all the simplifications would fill a book, each entry a competitive advantage for a specific application. Cloud services combined with mobile technology is lately getting a lot of press as a way to dig information technology out of an overly complex past.
Cloud and mobile are two historic Apple strong points.
- Apple has served more digital media from the cloud than any other organization on earth
- Apple popularized the touch screen for mobile devices beginning in 2007. The rest of the world is catching up, and that is a good thing. Competition delivers better results.
The rest of the world is catching up, and that is a good thing. Competition, considering all the options, delivers the best results.
Resources :
Consumer Reports March 2010 -- http://www.macworld.com/article/147024/2010/03/consumer_reports_apple.html
"Four years ago, Microsoft (MSFT) pulled in nearly $6 billion more in sales than Apple (AAPL). Now Apple's is total revenue is $4.1 billion bigger than Microsoft's." - October 29, 2010 -- http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/29/jobs-is-now-bigger-than-ballmers
Apple Podcasting Home Page -- http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/podcast-producer.html
Apple Wiki Server Home Page -- http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/wiki-server.html
Automated Scheduling of meetings based upon availability of attendees -- http://itservices.stanford.edu/service/emailcalendar/desktop/applemail/ical_schedulemtg