A View From
the Top
It might not
surprise you that Hewlett Packard doesn't view the future of hardware
or software on the Internet quite the same way as the majority of the
world. After all, they have made a business of developing solutions
for an unknown future. Within a couple of years the number of
Internet users is projected to go from 100 million to 500 million,
according to Ray Rahamin, Industry Director, e-financial services,
Hewlett Packard. But the more dramatic change, he believes, will be
how we as consumers or businesses use and interact with
e-services.
The term
"e-services" means that the Net will be used for more than just
business and commerce transactions. It will be used to replace
traditional competition, help customers help themselves, and expand a
company's reach to new customers.
Today's sites are
proprietary, massive, and costly, all of which will change
dramatically in the years to come. In what Rahamin calls chapter 1,
companies were forced to build out their entire offerings from the
ground up. We are now entering chapter 2, where we will evolve to
modular services that are accessible and deployable to anyone, and
where companies will deliver insight and knowledge, not just
information. The methodology will change from do-it-yourself to
do-it-for-me.
The mass
proliferation of e-services will include such things as navigation,
currency optimization, on the fly pricing, pay per use ERP software,
data mining on demand, and pay per use accounting. Currently, the
issue is the complexity and rigidity of the Net, and tomorrow's Net
will be much different than the Net of today.
- The Net will
evolve into a collection of services.
- The underlying
OS and technologies will become virtualized.
- There will be
a whole new class of recombinant e-services.
- There will be
just in time IT, a plugable infrastructure.
For example, now
if you are planning a trip, you cannot call one place and direct that
everything be done with one commandóthe airline, rental car,
hotel and restaurant reservations, directions, ordering of
supplies/gifts, etc. This is because Hertz can't talk to American
Airlines. Simplistically, HP's solution is to provide a new layer of
software that will allow applications in different systems to talk to
each other. It will be a thin layer (only 37-kb of code), it will be
open source, and it will run on all appliances. Thus, more services
will be linked rather than serving as data repositories. The
implications of this new direction are:
- Save money in
new ways.
- Drive revenue
growth.
- Eliminate a
battle for eyeballs.
- Capitalize on
opportunities more quickly.
- Increase
productivity. (Complex tasks are handled
automatically.)
- Take advantage
of more sophisticated and specialized services on an as needed
basis.
In short, it's not
about working the Web--it's the whole Internet working for
you.
What do you think?
Seems like a better vision than fighting over "eyeballs" or "site
stickiness" to me.
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