9:29 - Rob Bamforth from analyst house Quocira will open proceedings this morning in the futuristic inflatable dome that is the home of the CIO Briefings. His talk is entitled ‘From switching packets to switching business processes’. I’ve not been in a space quite like this before – the walls really are inflatable, and are grey on the outside, black on the inside. Some low level red lighting behind the stage adds a certain something to the ambiance. I keep thinking of the movie Silent Running. It’s an appropriately high-tech environment for these discussions – although I have a feeling the focus of Rob’s speech will be business, not IT.
09:36 – A power failure takes out the plasma screens and delays things slightly.
09:40 – Simon Jarvis from a consultancy called PTS chairs the session. He refers to the hype that has surrounded IP in recent years. Indeed there’s been more talk than action. He asks the audience how many people have implemented a fully converged IP network – it’s about 15%. That’s well up from a year ago (it was less than 1%), Simon says.
09:43 – Rob Bamforth takes to the stage. He tells an anecdote about falling off a bouncy castle in his youth…
09:45 – He too stresses that the ’Martini’ concept of anytime, anywhere, any place technology has been around for years and years, and is familiar to techies. And it’s becoming a reality. But what does it (in this case ‘it’ meaning converged services) mean for the business?
09:46 – For a start, he predicts the continuing decline of proprietary systems, and a move toward social networking.
09:48 – Rob also has some good slides on the pressures facing businesses these days (from a macro-social-economic, business and individual perspective). We have ‘uneven hyperconnectivity’ in the world, he points out - technology is not evenly distributed. That has an impact on the way we do business on a global basis.
09:54 – He also points to changes to come, as the next generation join the workforce having grown up in a digital world. They have overlapping social networks (unlike previous generations). Personalisation and relevance are also crucial. In the 90s, content was king. Today, context is ‘trumps’. I like that summary of where we’re at these days. The Martini model no longer holds - the model has to be more personalised in the early 21st century. The point is that individuals are demanding access to collaboration tools, even IP via Skype etc – this is having an effect on the IT infrastructure (some of it’s not just demand – it’s actually happening, but is coming onto the network via the ‘back door’.)
10:00 – Rob presents some interesting research which shows that most large companies are running all sorts of applications over their networks… computer comms, VPN, external phones, internal phones, video, etc etc. So do we need phones any more, or can we do it all via the desktop? Do we need fixed technology any more? And what sort of supplier to you turn to? Tech or telecoms?
10:02 – This is a convergence of technology, but also a collision of business model, says Rob. No one supplier will have every piece of the jigsaw, so IT bosses need to ask themselves who can supply what, and work out the best way of getting multiple suppliers from different worlds to work together.
10:07 – He predicts that, as more people work from home, social networking tools will be used to retain an element of ’social cohesion’ within the workplace.
10:10 – Rob again stresses the way in which the next generation’s communications demands will have an impact on IT infrastructure. Eg. with Skype, young people don’t make discrete calls; they open a connection, and keep it open. What happens if that sort of thing happens on the corporate network?
10:11 – He advises we forget the Martini ‘any’s’ of the techies, and focus on the realities – look for more ‘definite articles’, as he puts it. We need something that helps the business NOW and over the next few months… And that’s it from Rob. A very nice scene-setting talk. It’s always a pleasure to hear IT put into context like that.
Tags: quocirca, rob bamforth
