The eWorld Radar

IT Demystified - Terms - SoMoClo

What happens when JLo, SuBo and Docomo are smashed into each other at high speeds in an acronym accelerator? You get SoMoClo.

Such an outcome should in the acronym creation industry (aka marketing) be considered an unfortunate mutation and so be instantly discarded. However this one has escaped from the lab and will soon be coming to a cocktail party conversation near you.

I believe it was coined by Aberdeen Group to capture the converging worlds of social media, mobile and the Cloud. And indeed these are all important.

This convergence is particularly important from an enterprise perspective. Organisations that fail to capitalise on all three and fail to integrate their strategies on all three are likely doomed to failure.

It was pointed out to me by one of the Aberdeen guys on Twitter that whilst Apple and Google built out Cloud and social media from mobile, RIM didn’t.

So whilst it is a clumsy acronym and one likely to generate the perception of affectedness in anyone willing to use it in public, it represents a very important technology triad. One that will increasingly underpin the business models of both technology and end user organisations.   

Ade McComack

The death of talent?

It is claimed that the digital economy will eventually obviate the need for people. Why use a high maintenance sensitive carbon life form with undisclosed loyalties when you can use new technology for a fraction of the price and management overhead?

It’s a no-brainer. The race to deliver more for less is accelerating this.

But there comes a point when every organisation has basically automated everything and therefore the race to the bottom is over.

Therefore the only option is to start racing back up the value chain. And this is where people become important again. But this time the people are not compliant corporate cogs but highly creative artists; people who are a nightmare to manage but are in effect organic idea generators.

And once you start hooking these people up together using collaboration technologies you have an innovation engine that will differentiate your organisation from the rest.

So ironically in a digital economy people become more and not less important. But these people really are ‘talent’.

IT Demystified – Trends: M-Commerce

The concept of conducting financial transactions via one’s mobile phone is nothing new. The practicalities of offering it were held back for a long time because of poor security. Thus banks for example would let you carry out read operations (view/print) but not write (credit/debit account).

Today we can transact quite happily.

The next step now is the wide spread use of near field communications, whereby the mobile device holder can conduct transactions by either touching or waving the mobile device in close proximity to the payment terminal.  

This will be particularly valuable in the world of micro-payments. Newsagents don’t like taking credit cards to pay for newspapers so m-commerce gets around the issue.

The question is who will be the beneficiary of this emerging market. The banks and card companies regard this as their territory. But the mobile phone operators see this as a big opportunity. They can simply extend the use of their billing systems to include items purchased via the device.

Standards have generally held back progress, but with Google launching its Wallet offering in 2011, it looks like 2012 will see massive growth in this area.

Ade McCormack

Tech Sector Review - December 2011

Regime agnostic mass surveillance technology

Wikileaks has recently released information on 160 companies, many of whom are high profile Western organisations, who sell mass surveillance technologies that are being used by repressive regimes. These include technologies to monitor the activities of iphone, Blackberry and Gmail users. Technology also exists to monitor Wikileaks whistle blowing submission technology, which caused the Wikileaks revelation to be delayed.

HP taken down a notch or two

Beleaguered technology giant HP has had its credit worthiness degraded by Standard and Poor ratings agency. The debt rating was moved from A to triple B, which is three notches above junk status. With a higher cost of borrowing, HP will find it even more difficult to get itself back on an even keel.

Old media is the new media

For over a decade pundits have heralded the death of TV and newspaper advertising. Well new media player Google is actually increasing its investment in these channels, doubling its spend in 2011 year-on-year. Convincing people to move from Internet Explorer to Chrome or Facebook to Google + has required the new media giant to take this ‘radical’ approach.

Anonymous charity donations

BT, Barclays and HSBC are just a few companies that have had their clients’ credit card details stolen by Anonymous, the hacking collective. It has threatened to use the details to make unsolicited charitable donations. US security company Stratfor has reported that its clients have had their cards used in this manner. Ultimately this is likely to hurt the charities as they will incur charge back fees and administrative costs in handling the bogus donations.

New media practices – less is more

Email looks to be moving out of fashion, though the kids have known it for ages. Anyway technology player Atos Origin plans to ban email from the organisation by 2014. Chip maker Intel has experimented with ‘no email’ Fridays. Tech player Cap Gemini has reduced its email traffic by 40% by using workflow software. More recently carmaker Volkswagen has curtailed the email traffic to its staff by restricting Blackberry email services to 30 minutes either side of the working day.

Oracle wobbles

Software giant Oracle is known for its bullish style and its ability to deliver the figure to justify its posturing. The bullishness continues but the figures have turned south. Its recent quarter on quarter sales growth forecast fell by 5%, which in turn knocked 9% off the share price. Given Oracle’s reputation for market robustness, it is perhaps an indicator that 2012 will be a tough year for the IT industry.

A weapon of mass deception

Twitter has played a key role in political uprisings in 2011. Such is its power to keep fellow protesters and the world abreast of developments and so gain international support. So it is interesting that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi billionaire, has placed a $300m stake in Twitter. In fairness he has a penchant for new tech stocks and is considered a liberal by Middle Eastern standards. It does highlight though that if you want to control the message it can only be of benefit to control the messenger.