♯ Tic Tac Toe ♯
Not difficult to play a game in your head. A 3x3 matrix. Now try to play it in a 5x5 matrix in your head. Think about playing two boards at the same time. Complexity is the enemy.
And Complexity is shaping up to be "THE" IT discussion topic for 2010.
<<<<<<<<<<<<January, 2009>>>>>>>>>>>>
".. of the $71 billion in federal IT investments, someplace around $47 billion is invested in projects that are at risk."
"If we could find an antidote to federal IT complexity, we could simultaneously reduce our tax burden, increase our security, and improve the effectiveness of our government in almost every area."
Roger Sessions, noted IT complexity analyst and Microsoft MVP
Full article in pdf from objectwatch.com is available here..
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<<<<<<<<<<<<September, 2009>>>>>>>>>>>>
"IT is becoming unthinkably complex. The combination of system scale, software diversity and the accelerating pace of change are forcing IT to the brink." Heard on the Street, High Performance Computing on Wall Street conference that is.
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Reducing complexity is going to require change. So change management is another hot topic running along with the complexity thread. And open source is finally getting some real attention. 2010 is going to change a lot of ideas about the purpose of IT, Information Technology.
Middleware vendors are being forced into tough decisions as much of what was formerly expertise has become IT commodity, and they must change focus or pull back to remain viable.
What happens when IT vendors pull support or decide it is time to walk away?
Leaving in their wake a complex jumble of unfinished projects. The British NPfIT experiment, electronic health records, keeps hanging on, despite predictions that it will soon hold the record for the most expensive waste of enterprise IT dollars in history. The history would be a lot more amusing if not for the fact the US seems determined to get into the same predicament as quickly as possible.
A Promising Path for the Future
Is Steve Jobs the only one who reads up on challenges like this? Or is he just the only person willing to apply more than lip service to these kinds of problems?
Lets see, reduce complexity, focus on apps that are immediately beneficial, make them intuitive, less complex, so people can just start using them. Hey, it worked!
The app store, 75,000 apps and professional developers flocking to the platform, 1 billion downloads in 9 months. The iPhone, 90,000 deployed within 3 federal government agencies, 235,000 deployed by 19 of the US fortune 100 companies. http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219200351 Between the iPhone and the Touch, Apple can barely keep up.
Mention this to the complexity gurus, and see how fast they retreat into a spiel about how it is just not that simple. So why must it be more complex?
To preview the promise of the future, watch a group of subteens with Touches doing just about everything that has ever been done with information technology, while they yak and watch a ball game.