The Future is an On-Demand World
On the list of entrepreneurs who have built up a great track record of envisioning the digital future (e.g., Jeff Bezos, etc.) I think you’d have to include Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings. That’s why it was great reading Om Malik’s recent post about his interview with Reed about just that future. In short, the future is more on-demand services than ever.
Om starts the post talking about Netflix’s impressive subscriber growth from 14 million to 22 million in the last year. He goes on to mention the company’s focus on big data in order to improve user interaction.
Hastings believes that the broadband era of the Internet has just begun and that experiments such as the 1Gbps Google Access Fiber project in Kansas will be a great showcase of what will be possible in the future. He also likes the way countries such as Australia, Brazil and Costa Rica have made fiber broadband to the home a top priority.
Finally, he said that, in about 10 years, the predominant way to watch video will be on-demand. I think that time is actually already here for today’s youth, many of who don’t have the patience to wait to see what broadcast television decides to transmit. He gave an interesting vision of television and televisions sets comparable to the current state of smart mobile phone platforms such as the iphone.
It’s always interesting to gaze into the future, but it’s important for me to remind myself that more times than not, these visions turn out to be wrong. Indeed, there are really tough issues in terms of economic stability, scarcer natural resources and others that are clouds on the horizon.
Nevertheless, it’s definitely my view that we are much more at the beginning of a deep transformation of the way business is transacted and the way society interacts with each other. That makes for many challenges, but also much opportunity for creating new, viable “digitally enhanced” business models and that’s one of the reasons we’re so passionate about this environment and excited about its possibilities.
Amazon's Push For Same-Day Delivery
One of the major advantages Amazon has had over brick-and-mortar stores has been the lack of a sales tax. One of the disadvantages has been the lack of immediate gratification by consumers purchasing items. You buy something, you want to use it immediately. Recently, Amazon has stopped fighting the sales-tax war, which seems like a curious move to give up such a huge advantage over places like Walmart and Best Buy.
Slate’s Farhad Manjoo argues that by giving up the sales tax fight, Amazon is pushing ahead with another disruptive plan: same-day delivery that will all but destroy local retail.
Now that Amazon collects state sales tax, it can legally set up distribution centers within those states. So, instead of having to ship items to NYC from Kentucky or wherever, it can establish a myriad of warehouses across the country to ship ordered good within hours of the purchase time. Manjoo theorizes that next-day delivery will eventually become the default and same-day delivery will be a cheap upgrade or included in its Amazon Prime service.
If that happens it could be game over for many big box stores.
The story that should be written about Apple
thetechnologygeek.com
From the article:
Something struck me about all this while watching the replay of Tim Cook’s keynote address. It was the striking image of the opening of the Grand Central Apple Store and the crowds filling the concourse. This was a powerful image, because it’s the kind of thing you expect to see at a political rally and not at the opening of a consumer electronics store. It strikes me that Apple has now transcended even the traditional super brand status of a company like Nike or Coca Cola, and become something else entirely. It has become a cultural phenomenon all of its own, like nothing that has ever come before it. Perhaps that is why technology writers have such a hard time understanding and writing about the company. The cynical try to portray this phenomenon as just the obsessions of a bunch of hipsters or deluded Apple fans, but look at that crowd. That’s a lot more than just “hipsters” and “fanboys”. It’s a crowd of people from all walks of life, from college kids to professionals to young families, and they seem pretty happy with Apple. Here, in the midst of a powerful, albeit hopefully waning recession, we have an American company defying all the odds and being incredibly successful. Not only that, it has created an entire subculture of success around it. It has given birth to an entire industry of App developers and accessory makers. Even if you doubt the accuracy of its statistics, there is no denying that the company continues to create thousands of jobs in a flat economy and the knock on effect that it creates, employs or keeps thousands of others employed. Getting back to the Grand Central image, it has even emerged that trade is up in other stores in the station since the Apple store has opened.
Don't create products create disruption an article by @mikekarnj
mikekarnj.comStop Building Apps and Start Disrupting Industries
Apple Isn’t Just Disrupting Industries, It’s Changing Business Itself | Cult of Mac
cultofmac.comOne way to look at the consumerization of IT is as a democratization of workplace technology decisions. Executives and employees alike have become much more sophisticated users of technology. Through iPhones and iPads, they see how well designed devices, platforms, and apps can create enjoyable and, more importantly, productive user experiences. As a result, they don’t tolerate clunky business systems and slow IT responses as much as they did a few years ago.
Many executives and pundits believe this has already changed the balance of power between the CIO/IT management and the CFO and other executives. A recent Gartner survey found that overall, CFOs are leading IT decision-making more than they were just two years ago. One could even argue that in addition to disrupting industries like music and mobile technology, Apple is subtly disrupting IT and business itself (with some help from other tech and business innovators).
The survey, which Gartner has conducted annually since 2010 shows pretty distinctly that CFOs are gaining political capital in technology areas.
- 44% of CFOs say that their influence in technology decisions has increased over the past two years
- 47% say that it has remain about the same
- 9% say that their roles has diminished
