IT is the future, the future is now. Therefore, IT has no future.

Maybe it is too simplistic, but the way that I see it, we are at a very sharp curve in the IT road and it is taking us into an amazing direction.

For years, we have heard people say that the term Information Technology has become a misnomer and many alternative names have been proposed. The ones that resonated most with me, are ‘the era of computing’ and ‘business technology’.

While both have been an attempt to describe the ‘new IT’, and while closely intertwined, they are very different in scope, meaning and execution. Not to mention, that both are lacking in one fundamental aspect: trust.

When I say that IT has no future, I am not only talking about the name alone, even the approach, the requirements and the execution are taking a turn. 

Over the next few years, all of IT will become utilitarian. No matter where you go, devices and connections will be available and provide us with everything we need - Personally and professionally. While this is nothing new, there are 4 puzzle-pieces that need to fall into place before the major turn can be taken:

1: Everything as a Service

Cloud computing is here to stay. No ifs, ands or buts about it. It has penetrated out lives to an extent that we are no longer able to remove it - From our email to our banking, everything we do touches ‘the cloud’ at some point.

We are already seeing all types of software, from the mundane to the exotic, show up as Cloud-based offerings. With all of the ‘XaaS’ (X as a Service) it is easier than ever to use software without a serious commitment.

Great initiatives surrounding Cloud computing, like the Open Cloud Initiative which will allow a client to move between Cloud providers seamlessly, will instill a level of trust and flexibility that has never been given before. If you do not like how your provider deals with you, handles financial issues or uptime issues, you will be one click away from migrating a live host to an other provider that will do a better job.

Now imagine other services, such as cash registers and payment terminals in a shopping mall, or call-center work-spaces (including phones and software) in an office building, ready to spin up ‘as a service’. Scale your environment as needed, pay only for what you need.

The best part? Cloud-based companies have a single focus: The product or service that they are offering, and they hire specialists on the subject that any regular company would not be able to afford. Instead of taxing local IT with the phone system, which they touch once per year and is not part of their ‘core business’, why not let your VoIP provider setup, monitor and maintain it? You’ll be guaranteed the latest functions and a system that is properly monitored and maintained by specialists in their field. And once again, you only pay for what you use, when you use it.. 

2: Connectivity as a utility

In despite of visions of wireless networks being ambiguous and providing the greatest HD Video social media experiences, there is still a tremendous requirement for wired connectivity. Very simply put, there is no wireless technology available that will satisfy our growing hunger for fast, scalable, secure and affordable bandwidth. Moving data on back-end systems now and in the near future will continue to be done over wired connections.

We would probably all chuckle if I would ask if we should install our own plumbing when we want water or sewer connected in our home. Or our electrical wiring and outlets. Or our gas pipes for our stoves. So, why not imagine that the basic technological infrastructure is implemented as part of the construction process, instead of leaving it to each user individually?

Harnessing economies of scale, Connected Real Estate is a major step in the right direction of providing connectivity as a utility. With the right partners and execution, scalable and redundant bandwidth can be brought to buildings, communities, shopping malls, hotels and any other real estate project. The clients/tenants/renters/home-owners will benefit of greater available bandwidth, offered for very little money or, in some cases, for free as part of the rent or community fee.

Cloud and Utilitarian Connectivity are intertwined to such a degree, that the success of one will multiply the success of the other: Cloud will be more successful with a scalable and reliable infrastructure to carry it. Utilitarian Connectivity needs a ‘killer app’. Its a match made in heaven and everybody, including the end-user, walks out a winner.

3: Centralized Support 

With more products becoming available as a service, we are now switching our support complexity from managing systems to managing vendors. At this point, the most simple and well-known example for Cloud users is the finger-pointing between the service provider and the internet provider. Most of the time, both point to the other as the cause of the problem, leaving the client in the middle. Not knowing what to do. Not understanding where the problem is. 

That situation needs to be taken care of, one way or an other. Businesses win when customer satisfaction grows, businesses loose when customer frustration sets in. No matter how you look at it and who is ‘at fault’, problems like these need a resolution.

I foresee that companies will spring up in the very near future that will find a way to become the ‘single point of helpdesk’ for all of our business technology needs. We fill out a form online, checking all of the providers we use, and ‘the Company’ makes sure that relationships are maintained will all of these providers. Maintaining contacts with a service provider for multiple clients makes the contact stronger and the communication easier, creating awareness of client requirements and the eliminating the finger-pointing along the way.

The Company will have a centralized training program available and will offer training specialists on all aspects of Business Technology, not on a single product alone, by means of their relationships with the service providers.

Centralized billing for all options becomes an other reality, making the transfer from one software package to an other, or one service provider to an other, a completely seamless transition and a headache-free experience.

Now, with one-stop-support on the connection as well as the applications that we are running, there is one major thing remaining: What providers do we trust with our data?

4: Trust

The biggest challenge that any business owner has in a time of hackers, identity theft and mobile apps, is security. Maybe this should have been the first point on my list, but I think that it makes more sense after the previous three points.

Think about it: Who do you trust with your date and how do you know that you can trust them?

This is were standardized certifications come in. There will never be a foolproof solution, but with standardization and certification by the proper authorities, a means will be provided for end-users to understand how their precious data is handled. 

There are many standards already in place, many of them mandated by the government, and most of them deal with either business (such as Sarbanes-Oxley), payments (such as PCI), or personal information (such as HIPAA). Others, such as various ISO standards, deal with definitions of quality control in just about every aspect of business - From delivery in the supply chain to the protection of information.

Depending on the the nature of your business and the nature of your data, you may find that some certifications are better suited than others. Either way, a globally recognized, ongoing accreditation by a recognized certification body shows commitment to excellence and dedication to instilling trust in clients.

It is the only way that will allow us to use initiatives like the previously mentioned Open Cloud Initiative, and trusting a Centralized Support Organization to find the proper alternative, to give use that worry-free, headache-less experience that we all need to get our sleep at night.

Conclusion

Imagine the future based on these four pillars: All software, connectivity, phones and even specialized services will converge to cloud-based, multi-tenant solutions. Making the need for local IT staff, dedicated to all products of a company, minimal and giving the client access to high level staff, dedicated to a single product. The connectivity will give us reliable, scalable connections without wait-time or connection cost. We can use more (or less) phones and dumb workstations as the needs of our companies (or households) change. We’ll have ‘one neck to choke’ when something is not functioning right, and will not have to deal with technicians, putting blame anywhere but with themselves.

These four pieces, put together, are the corner pieces of the puzzle of where technology is heading. Many other pieces will be put in place as we go, to complete the whole picture, and we are seeing the first ones fall into place.

We are in an exciting time to live.. Truly, exciting. 

I sent an email message today about my experiences with finding a DMS system that offers basic functionality and is extremely easy for the supporting users to learn and maintain. Reading it again, I made a few minor modifications and decided to post it here……

We needed a document management system for several reasons. Primarily for a basic form of version control, to keep track of documents as they get changed by various people, and have the last ‘final version’ always available even though new changes are being made to future versions.

Second, we are getting rig of our paper cabinets and needed a better way to provide access control, search and manageability than a shared folder.
Being a relatively small company, the problem with the implementation of such a system is often -as it was for us- the cost vs the benefits. When looking at many of the solutions out there, cost scales up after the initial implementation. Either through absurd ‘annual maintenance fees’ or just because Linux based systems need a Linux admin. And, while I do fit that picture, what happens when I am unavailable? Linux admins for small scale, but business critical applications are not found that easily.

I have looked at various solutions from community supported open source to fully commercial, and kept running into the same issues:

• Initial cost is too high for most commercial solutions, for what it does OR for what we need.
• Ongoing maintenance and long term stability could be an issue when using OSS products.
• SaaS or other Cloud-based solutions are just not something that we feel comfortable with, given the nature of the information we need to store.
• Many OSS projects try to do too much for what we need and therefore, become too cumbersome to set up and properly maintain. Also, there is often a lack of training available on these systems.

As a technologist, I firmly believe in a proper DMS but have not found an OSS one that I feel comfortable with, proving built-in version control, search and access control. On the commercial side, Microsofts Sharepoint fits the bill but becomes costly when it needs to scale, and is not really meant as a pure DMS. We finally chose for a solution that we feel is most simple to use and affordable in purchase as well as maintenance, but I feel that there must be a good OSS alternative for it. 

As for the future? As our documentation system grows and the accessibility of information becomes more pertinent, and expected, as mobile technologies provide more and more information seamlessly, business requirements follow suit. Within a few years, it will no longer be socially acceptable to browse through cabinets and drawers full of paper documentation - The expectation will be to type a keyword in a Google-like search box, and let OCR do the rest…

Are you aware of any OSS DMS systems that will work great for the SMB and micro-sized business? I’d love to hear from you.