Monthly Market Commentaries
The LEF Monthly Market Commentaries (listed on the right) provide our latest thinking on today's rapidly changing business/IT marketplace. They are designed to build upon and update the work we do in each of our six major research domains.
Written in a more informal and opinionated style, each piece reflects the views of its author. If you have any feedback, suggestions, or wish to discuss any aspect of these commentaries, please contact David Moschella, our Global Research Director.
When it comes to environmental sustainability, the information technology industry's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. The flip side of our industry's relentless technological progress is rapid product obsolescence and ever-rising piles of electronic waste (e-waste). Put simply, Moore's Law, the driving dynamic behind IT innovation for nearly five decades, is fundamentally not green, and perhaps not even sustainable – at least, not yet.
Over the last few weeks, we have hosted two client conferences: Cloud Computing on 18 November in London, and The Changing Nature of Work on 1 December in Falls Church, Virginia. Both events featured powerful examples of customers using modern consumer technologies for real business advantage.
Back in 2003, one of the first things we wrote about The Consumerization of the IT Industry was that it would be a process – a set of changes and dynamics that would take time to play out. For many decades, the information technology industry had been top-down, with large systems and large enterprises the primary focus of innovation. Such a huge and established order couldn't be inverted all in one go; new approaches would have to take hold and set new evolutionary processes in motion.
When I think about the impact of the iPhone, I often marvel at how many products I no longer need. This elegant handheld computer is already my primary watch, camera, music player, map, compass, alarm clock, dictionary, notepad, calendar, calculator, tape recorder, address book, tide chart, ebook reference library and, increasingly, my main internet access device (almost). Tomorrow, it may well be my TV, radio, wallet, ID card, health monitor, location-aware guide, and who knows what else as well. Smart phones are literally absorbing one commodity market sector after another. What can we learn from this?