Friday, July 20, 2012

Ongoing BYOD Watch

Technology leaders regularly scan the landscape for trends in the marketplace, seeking clues on emerging trends. Gazing the proverbial crystal ball and divining insights continues to be an art, more than a precise science. Not many industry watchers, technologists and even tech consumers could have realized game-changing influence of iDevices – iPhones and iPads that has impacted our views on usability of computing and wireless technology in a matter of years.


A couple of weeks ago I posted on Enterprise Architects and BYOD Watch and I continue musing on the topic especially as there continues to be a lot of noise and chatter among digirati on the fate of beloved corporate tools – Blackberries and laptops. For CIO’s technologists and Enterprise Architects, the market trajectory of Research in Motion (Blackberry), Microsoft, Google et al will have a strong ripple effect.

A quick extract from Finance.Yahoo from this morning (20th July) paints an interesting view from a tech investor perspective.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, the graph above tells a story, which I am not going to narrate. Industry watchers and analysts however continue to have a field day exploring multiple dimensions:
  • Lost opportunity angle: Almost identical articles on Nokia and Microsoft’s lost opportunity in in smartphones and tablets appeared in popular media recently. Wall Street Journal : Nokia's Bad Call on Smartphones. Vanityfair on “Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant.” My two cents: The articles make for an interesting read thogh there are not many lessons to be learnt. This is similar to comparing success of Facebook to the pitfalls of most other social networking sites: it is not like a single factor stands out but a series of events. 
  • Worst case scenario planning: What if ABC-Tech goes bust? Corporate leaders and technologists have begun contingency planning for shakeup in the mobile device space. Refer to regular articles in media that seems to love scoops like XYZ &Co drops Blackberry (re: Qantas decides to drop RIM's BlackBerry news from this morning). These prompt boards and c-level executives to ask their technologies to ask about their firm’s contingency plan.
It's friday afternoon and I must get back to gazing my crystal ball.