When The Children Grow Up
Reading M.R. Rangaswami’s recent post Where are Software’s Children, I am struck by the continued belief that enterprises will continue to use installed applications through the next generation of software. That is simply not going to happen.
Mr. Rangaswami’s observation of the age of the ruling class of software companies is aging and that most good young programmers and executives are going to Web 2.0, open source, and SaaS companies. He makes a number of suggestions on what the TBA “traditional business application” companies can do to combat that trend. While Mr. Rangaswami is correct in observation, his suggestions in the end will be spitting in the wind.
That is because the young talent is attracted to these companies because of what they are doing, creating the next generation of applications. They have no interest in working on client server technologies. They grew up on the web and they want to be building Web Applications on next generation platforms. The idea that better mentoring will get these people to work on a fading technology is absurd. So the real interesting question is what is the world going to be like when these “Children” grow up.
I remember a similar shift when I first got in to the business world back in the late 80’s. The company I worked for did all their computing on a VAX, and made very minimal use of PCs (just for word processing and some spreadsheets). I was charged with putting together a corporate training database and employee scheduling tools. I never once considered doing it on the VAX. The idea of using that technology was as a complete anathema.
The same thing is happening in todays technology world. These new generation of technologists grew up on-line. They look at client server computing and installed software the way I looked at the VAX. They probably realize the power of it, but would never consider using it or working on it. It’s as separated from their existence as an ATM network would be to todays network engineers.
Which of course leads back to one of my favorite assertions. In the next twenty years all applications will be Web Applications. Not because they are cheaper or easier to use or better platforms for group work (though they are all three), but because they are how the next generation of users and programmers are used to working. This young guard will be the old guard by then and they won’t be installing software any more than I am using a VAX to run my business today.
The hardest part of all of this is realizing I’m the old guard now (I guess turning 40 had something to do with that as well). I love this next generation of applications and I almost wish I could create a training database today so that I could use a Rollbase, or Dataweb, or Coghead to do it. Unfortunately, that will be the job of the Jason Cumberlands of the world. I’ll just have to be content with coming up with ways to help these guys grow in to the “Adults of the Web.”
Posted: October 18th, 2007 under SaaS - Software As A Service, Uncategorized, Web applications.
Comments: 1
Comments
Comment from Ed Daniel
Time: December 4, 2007, 7:58 am
What is curious is how things come-and-go and come back again!
I feel the world of technology in its continuing expanse often re-visits old ideas and re-catalyses their ingenuity - examples might be RISC, virtualisation and dumb terminals. Ideas hatch but they can often be ahead of their time.
Yes, young people are au-fait with the latest and they will improve and extend that however one should never be blinkered by fads and fashion - instead common sense and knowledge of what has passed and what is coming tend to dictate the mantra that is ‘fit-for-purpose, fit-for-use’.
Design is an interesting behaviour of human nature, I recall a trip to Japan where I learnt that one of the ways they made roof tiles was inspired by a monk’s visit to Korea. More than the technology it will be their social behaviour and how that has changed that will be most influential - are they patient, can they stay focused, are they able to invest the same amount of time in personal relationships as we once did or do - i.e. with social nets one has less time for more people - how does that affect what they choose to do for example.
Write a comment