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Technology Predictions for 2010

There were only a few people who could have predicted the almost catastrophic failure of the world’s economy in 2009; and while leading global financial institutions and governments pulled together to bailout failing companies, it was the humble tax-paying workforce that had to push through the difficulties of a recession, employment cutbacks, high inflation, and low interests rates.

In difficult times, the companies that survive are those that innovate.  They evolve and adapt to new ways of working, and those new ways of working inadvertently become the norm. And I’m not the only one who thinks that, ask Steve Ballmer. An executive email published by the Microsoft CEO, entitled The New Efficiency, describes how difficult times result in new ways of working. Cloud computing has long been used to define the future of business enterprise, and describing cloud based-computing often conjures up images of 3D worlds, impossibly thin net-book computers, and completely wire-free working (including powerless power transmission).

As the global workforce begins to collaborate on a larger scale, we’ll see the wider adoption and gradual proliferation of web-based tools,  based on open APIs  (ie sets of technologies that enable websites to interact with each other by using SOAP, Javascript and other web technologies) to aid this mode of working. We’ll find that companies will shift from a static, closed-off, intranet to an interactive, more intuitive, web-based intranet with a greater level of immersion.  And this will spawn from the empowerment of information to the user.  Users will have the knowledge, and understanding, of information at their fingertips and this will allow them to do more with the information available to them. This will be driven by rapid developments in business intelligence techniques, greater transparency in communication across corporate divisions, and advanced levels of data analytics.

Corporate social networking will become the standard platform for communicating within the workplace, and consequently we’ll see a range of mobile device applications which will deliver user centric information direct to a user in real-time. And this information will be synchronised across the myriad of guises that form the user’s corporate identity, in applications such as Microsoft Outlook, instant messaging tools, and knowledge management platforms. We’ll find, by the close of 2010, that web-applications will have the same richness and usability as desktop applications, and that users will gravitate towards online working as the transition between the two platforms becomes almost evolutionary.

A greater emphasis will be placed on home-working, and the ability to work remotely. And this will, in turn, drive developments in wireless telecommunications and advance developments in online collaboration via shared web-based applications. We’ll find that wireless hotspots will have greater coverage with a more reliable (and stable) connection and laptops will downsize as users become part of a more mobile workforce.

No doubt we can already see the benefits, and changes, flash memory is bringing. And as the capacity of flash memory increases so will the versatility of its use. We’ll reduce the need to store files on a desktop or laptop computer and will instead carry the essential files we need with us, and this will be driven by rapid advancements in mobile device technology.

Solid state technology isn’t new, and it’s most famous association is with hard disks. However, this will change in 2010 as solid state memory is introduced. This introduction will result in improved performance and processing power. A few years from now, as quantum computing advances, we’ll see the introduction of solid state processors – and by that time we’ll see the cost of solid state technology reduce to levels of actual disk-based hard disks presently available.

Imagine looking through the lens of your mobile phone camera, and seeing the world as you would normally but with an overlay of user-specific data. Augmented reality will deliver just that. For users this will mean using the device – pointing it at a specific location or landmark whilst walking around – and seeing synchronised data and website links relating to whatever they’re looking at.

There are a myriad of other technologies that will evolve over the course of 2010, technologies that will fight for our attention, and technologies that will assist us daily – I’d be fascinated to hear your thoughts on this…

Raleigh 09K Phase 3 and End of Expedition:

Having previously completed the trek and community phases, the final three weeks of my Raleigh 09K expedition was spent working with the Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Center (BSBCC) preparing the perimeter of the new enclosure before the bears are released in March. Located near the popular Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, the BSBCC will house up to 20 bears, teaching them the necessary skills needed to survive before releasing them back into the wild.

Sun bears are the world's smallest bear species and spend most of their solitary life in the high trees of the rainforest. As more and more primary jungle is being cultivated to meet the strong demand for palm oil and rosewood, the home of the sun bear is fast diminishing. To make matters worse, illegal pet trade has left many cubs orphaned and living in small cages with no access to the rainforest.

As well as providing a center for rescued bears to be rehabilitated before being released back into the wild, the BSBCC also aims to raise awareness of this unique and threatened animal. Over a period of three weeks, our team (Alpha 4) worked on the external and internal fences of the center, driving 3ft iron rods into the ground to prevent the bears digging under the perimeter and escaping. I personally felt that this was the most rewarding project as it is such a great cause, making the often repetitive work meaningful and spurring the group on to complete the challenging milestones set.

Now that phase three has finished, Raleigh expedition 09K has come to an end meaning the next adventure to New Zealand begins. In one month I will return to Sabah, Borneo, for the 10A expedition as a Project Manager, employing all the new skills I have picked up over the past ten weeks to empower individuals who step up as day leaders – hopefully they won't mind getting very muddy...
 

We've got it SaaS'd!

It’s hard to guarantee anything in IT, whether it’s the compatibility of hardware with software, the integration of third-party software with bespoke in-house applications, or the longevity of newly developed hardware technologies. One thing however is for sure, nothing’s ever a surprise!

In this post I’d like to hear your views on what you think will become of the Software as a Service (SaaS) technology. Critics of SaaS say it’s not without its limitations, such as lack of flexibility, speed of data transmission, lack of suitability for non-enterprise (niche) technology platforms, and the lack of portability and interoperability between vendors. Supporters would however remind you of its versatility (in enterprise), scalability, and cost effectiveness.

Capgemini has established a key partnership with Google on the developmental side of the Google Apps service (Google Apps Premier Edition), and it has quickly realised the potential of monetizing SaaS technology within a corporate environment.

And as I opened this post I’d like to hear what your thoughts are on SaaS. Do you think all the hype has any solid ground? Do you think SaaS will take over desktop applications? And what are your thoughts on Cloud computing, do you think SaaS is an extension of this (or vice versa)?

I’d be fascinated to hear your thoughts.
 

Externalisation & Web3D: A Corporate View

In my last post I touched on the subject of virtual reality and the adoption of three-dimensional worlds as a platform for online collaboration. In this post I’d like to share with you my thoughts on this trend, and explore the possibilities this holds for the future of enterprise and personal computing.

You’d be hard pushed to find, in the present day world, the existence of a corporate organisation that does not to some degree depend on an IT infrastructure. My own proclivities on this are often drawn from various media reports which frequently suggest that companies would otherwise fail without a reliable and robust IT infrastructure. A report in the FT, dated 8th September 2008, wrote that the London Stock Exchange came to a complete halt due to an IT system malfunction in the reporting of trades (shares bought and sold). This couldn’t have come at a worst possible time for Britain’s economy; the country was on the verge of its first quarter of negative growth – on the back of a quarter of zero growth – due to the rippling effects of the financial crises across the Atlantic.

What this highlights is the importance (and indeed our dependency) on technology and the services it provides.  We seem to be intrinsically focused on collaborating on a professional level within office buildings connected by local area networks, and this – for the most part – is the reason why enterprise technologies evolve over a longer period of time than personal (home user) technologies. And it’s the agile nature of home computing which has meant that the home user has a more sustainably ubiquitous reach of technology resources.  There are however organisations, such as Serena Software, who (for example) are leading the way by bucking that trend. Serena Software has adopted Facebook as its corporate intranet, and by doing so has shown that users don’t need to be office-based just to gain the benefits of accessing corporate data – some might argue that the use of VPN is an equivalent technology, however to implement VPN within a large organisation would result in resource costs which would otherwise be avoided by incorporating freely available web-applications. Taking this forward there exist a multitude of tech firms which have created web-based versions of everyday desktop applications – such as Google Docs, OpenOffice, and webERP – and this shift in communication is well documented in the book Lost in Translation, by Carl Bate and Nigel Green, in which it calls this trend externalisation. The book goes on to provide clear direction on the benefits of implementing web-based applications in a corporate environment and also discusses such benefits in guidance with the VPEC-T methodology.

Taking this concept further imagine, if you will, entering an office building and finding your way to your desk. You then sit down and log onto your personal computer, before setting up your phone and checking your emails. A fairly standard approach to the working day, however what if you did this in a virtual environment? And what if all of your colleagues did this too? All in the same office building, essentially replicating what happens in the real world but in the confines of a software environment. If indeed this were to be the case then in an instant there would be astronomical savings on diverse platforms resulting in varying degrees of effectiveness.  Online games such as Second Life have propelled the concept of online collaboration by improving communication, productivity, and customer/client interaction. And this level of immersion within virtual environments will only get deeper as Web3D becomes more prominent within web-application development.

Combining the concept of externalisation with the evolution of web3D will change the face of business – it’s not a matter of if – as it’s only a matter of time. What I expect to see happening, certainly within the next year, is a greater – more widespread – use of IM applications which will later combine other technologies such as video conferencing and file-sharing, and the only real issue holding this back is how this can be properly audited. An extreme example of what IM could look like in the future –when combined with a web-based virtual world – is the internet start-up Club Cooee. Club Cooee is the world’s first three-dimensional IM application based on a Second Life style virtual world – I encourage you to have a look at this see and see for yourself the potential this sort of technology could have in commerce.

I’d be interested in reading your visions of where this could all lead.

“There are Updates Available”

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye ... and the Nokia Morph

A little thinking goes a long way…

Who says graduates don’t get opportunities?  Who says we are sheltered from the real world?  Well, I can safely say from experience, that’s not how you’re treated in the BTC!  Several weeks ago many teams entered into a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style competition, each required to pitch an idea to several of the company’s senior executives, or in this case, the dragons, based on one of four key areas:

Media and Entertainment
Health and Medical Care
Education
Technology
 
I will not write much more about the day, as this has already been covered by a post from John Reynolds and second external post from David Evans of the BCS.  The fallout from this competition, named the BTC Challenge, was for a few select teams, a second pitch to a more targeted audience. 

In a nutshell, our idea was to create a desktop widget used to download and view selected TV shows from all of a leading UK TV Broadcaster’s back-catalogue, absolutely free.  The TV shows would have embedded 20-30 second targeted advert clips which would be refreshed each time the user connected back to the service.  The full show, including adverts, could then be converted and transferred to portable devices via the widget for watching on the go.

Although we didn’t win with this idea, our pitch caught the interest of one executive, who used his network of contacts to arrange a second presentation to the COO of a major UK Broadcaster.  What an opportunity; I was blown away by the mere thought of it!  An executive taking time out of his busy schedule to arrange this was, to me, a credit to the company’s internal politics; the fact that he allowed us free reign of the presentation and agenda, and attended merely as an observer showed complete faith and trust in the abilities of four graduates with only 10 months of IT consulting experience.

The presentation was kept very informal, and after a brief description of our idea it became much more of a Q&A session where, in a very surreal haze, a senior figure and lead thinker of the company was asking for our opinions on technical and business issues.

Following the presentation we had a congratulatory lunch where we reflected on the experience, and each came away with a great sense of achievement – we had been given the opportunity to represent our company and had not disappointed!

So, are we sheltered from the real world... ‘computer says naaaoooo’.
 

Dragons Spotted in London : The BTC Challenge

Last month most of the graduates in the BTC programme participated in a "Dragons Den" style competition. The board was made up from senior executives from Capgemini and was held in the London office of the British Computer Society (BCS).

Small teams had a few weeks to prepare a 10 minute presentation regarding an innovative idea from four predefined categories. This was in addition to their normal project work.

All the teams did a fantastic job at presenting new ideas to subject matter experts, and everyone agreed although it had been hard work, it was a fantastic opportunity and a lot of fun.

David Evan's from the BCS attended the event, you can read his opinion here: David Evan's BCS Blog