The recent Collaborate16 conference for Oracle professionals
discussed many issues and challenges we have today and how innovation is
changing how we create and utilize information. We live in the Age of
Innovation. The change we have seen in the past 10 years has been unprecedented
in our history. These changes have reached into our everyday lives as we have
moved from the Printed Age to the Digital Age. The change has not been gradual,
rather it has been revolutionary. We as information professionals have seen
this change every day and need to adapt to the changes in technology.
Disruptive technologies are not new. In the past the car was
seen as disruptive form of transportation and ultimately put an end to the
horse-drawn carriages and in many ways changed how we saw trains. In the
information area we saw email supplant traditional postal mail. In the past
people sent thoughtful and detailed letters to each other to provide updates which
arrived days or weeks after they occurred. Email changed the way we
communicate. Today we can communicate our thoughts and feeling via email in an
instantaneous manner which has caused the Postal service to rethink the
products and services they offer. Even email has been impacted by disruptive
technologies as well. The use of apps like Snapchat, text messaging, and
Instagram.
Consider the message we got in the movie "The
Graduate" in which a smug Los Angeles businessman takes aside the young
Dustin Hoffman and declares, "I just want to say one word to you -- just
one word -- 'plastics.'”. If the same movie was produced today the line may be
…. “I just wanted to say 2 words to you…. Just 2 words… 3D Printing”. We have
moved from use plastics by industry to the point where individuals can now
control the plastic. We can use 3D Printing to produce machines, artwork and
even a complete house. There is no limit to what can be done
A recent survey from TechPro Research identified the drivers
for innovation. The list below illustrates their results:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/it-innovations-four-horsemen-google-apple-amazon-microsoft/ |
The survey shows us that Cloud has been the most disruptive
technology to spur on innovation. I find this interesting as I expected that the
emergence of Big Data or data as a foundation of life as being the most
disruptive, but the numbers show us that Cloud is significantly more impactful
at spawning innovation.
How is it that the Cloud has made some an impact in innovation?
Although it should be obvious, the Cloud
has allowed us to create solution which are not encumbered by our own local
limitations. In the Cloud we can now deploy solutions using new technologies as
see if they work with limited cost and risk exposure. We now have an
environment where we can leverage its elasticity to support the storage of more
data than previously considered. By using the technology to support the
deployment of solutions quickly it also provides a storage area which can be
used to supply analysts with data when they need it at a cost which can be very
competitive.
The leadership at Oracle have clearly shown that Cloud is
their future as well. Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CEO, stated, “We are in the
middle of a generational shift to the cloud, it is no less important than the
move to personal computing”. Oracle has delivered on this vision by creating a
cloud environment where you can get a database, deploy a Hadoop cluster or run
Oracle’s eBusiness Suite. The transformation has been quick and Oracle’s focus
is clearly in this area based on what they now offer. The question is whether
or not customers will be willing to move to a SaaS and PaaS approach and move
away from in-house software and application management.
Innovation comes in many forms but one thing is that
innovation brings is change. We must remember that although innovation is meant
to provide benefits, not all innovations will succeed. We therefore must ensure
that regardless of success we must look at new ideas to allow our organizations
to evolve.