Over time, IT has delivered a lot more than just hardware and software. It has also played an important part in delivering some of the big transformations that now define the modern enterprise.
Consider life without desktop computing, email, the internet, and modern data analytics. Notwithstanding, many would argue that the days of technology-driven transformation are over, and IT is now just a commodity.
There is an alternative view that the best ideas are still to come. Mobile devices have already demonstrated that the wider community has an insatiable appetite for technology, as long as it is well-targeted and innovative.
Mobile technology has awakened the inner geek in all of us, and has opened the door to a “quiet revolution” in the enterprise. At a time of government cutbacks and cost reductions, this quiet revolution may point the way toward an alternative path led by innovation, rather than the dismal prospect of just getting less for less.
Mobile technologies have brought on a “quiet revolution”
There has been a quiet revolution happening in enterprise IT, and almost nobody noticed. Traditionally, technology developments have been created and managed by the IT department, and then delivered through planned system releases.
The quiet revolution has seen mobile technology infused into the enterprise from all directions. Even CEOs and senior executives have joined the chorus of mobile converts, each demanding their own smartphone or tablet device. These are the same senior executives who, only a few years earlier, each proclaimed, “I’m not an IT person.”
But this revolution runs even deeper. There has always been a presumption that only enterprise IT could provide the necessary technical horsepower to deliver business systems. Essentially, high-tech enterprise needed to deliver IT services to a lower-tech consumer. The new paradigm has a high-tech enterprise and an even higher-tech customer base.