Evolution

Some hunches on which way we might be headed ....
Technology is no longer going to be bought; 2008 will mark a huge shift in IT spends from purchasing technology to renting it out from the big boys. Recent television ads appear to be priming the target markets towards this phenomenon

Technology as a "Service Oriented Architecture" with key messaging standards, distributed database architectures, grid computing technologies etc. will become more prevalent.

Entrepreneurship will go on the rise as the entry capital required to start business will shrink as well as time to market of the products; this will leave a very product oriented approach to business building and administrative overheads will go down.

The current monolithic structures of software product vendors will be challenged as Technology Service Providers will become an aggregator of IT services and hence the big budget spending (and therefore the balance of power) will shift to these providers

Pre-fab desktops will disappear, and growing needs for local memories will disappear. Focus will be on providing large cache-ing abilities. Every other need, be it OS, software applications, email access, file storage space etc. will be outsourced to an internet / local intranet-based player. This will be a virtual life in a Google world.

Value pricing will play a key role, as is seen in Enterprise Solution services of leading telecom equipment manufacturers

The fastest growing cost will be employee salaries and benefits.
a) Keeping it low will get the Government to spend, thus raising taxes; take the case of large, global retailers
b) Keep it high and the organization will sink during a down-turn, like various global auto and auto-component makers
c) Keep it variable and the organization will invite the wrath of the employees and face increasing churn.
Makes you wonder about ESOPs, doesn't it?

There will be two or three types of business organizations : manufacturer, service provider, financier. There are three types of people: industrialist, entrepreneur and trader. At any point of time, two out of the three will reign supreme. Take your pick.

Centralization and de-centralization of internal processes will be reduced to a fad. Loosely coupled and "Independent PnL" units that share certain common infrastructures such as Branding, IT services, HR, procurement efficiencies etc. will become a de-facto approach.

On a more nostalgic note, why am I so sure that change is always round the corner and change will be random? Because nearly ten years back, I was enjoying a "cigarettes - and - tea" break at a favourite 'adda', accompanied by two chaps. One was a programmer at Netscape, working on the Communicator product. The other, told that he lacked adequate credentials by Netscape, had to settle for Microsoft. The project that he was working on? Internet Explorer 2.0. Needless to say, the chat session over tea and cigarettes revolved around the Netscape chap passing un-flattering remarks about Internet Explorer. The other chap merely smiled and said nothing. I was so taken in by the first chap's technology evangelism that when TCP/IP based internet access was finally introduced by VSNL in Mumbai, I went around bashing IE and praising Communicator to the hilt. Then, change slapped me in the face and taught me a lesson in humility. Never forgotten since then the power of keeping your eyes and ears open and mouth shut. One of the very few lessons I've learnt: it will always be the end of the world as I know it, and I feel great.