Friday, November 19, 2004
The Elegance of Simplicity and the Future of IT
Posted by Jonathon Watkins in "THOUGHT" @ 06:00 AM
If you are looking for clear, insightful and thoughtful analysis, then it's hard to beat the UK's Economist Magazine. Recently they published a 15 page survey/series of articles on the future of the IT industry, focusing on the conquest of complexity. It's a cracking read and it's well worth setting the time aside to go through the various articles:
""It is time for us to rise up with a profound demand," declared the late Michael Dertouzos in his 2001 book, "The Unfinished Revolution": "Make our computers simpler to use!" Donald Norman, a long-standing advocate of design simplicity, concurs. "Today's technology is intrusive and overbearing. It leaves us with no moments of silence, with less time to ourselves, with a sense of diminished control over our lives," he writes in his book, "The Invisible Computer". "People are analogue, not digital; biological, not mechanical. It is time for human-centred technology, a humane technology."
The essential argument is that simplicity is the 'Next Big Thing' for the industry. Gartner reckons that IT complexity will cost firms worldwide some US$750Bn and that 70-80% of IT spending goes on fixing things rather than buying new systems. Chris Capossela, the head of Microsoft's desktop applications says that technology has perversely ended up making life more complex. Intel's abandonment of the 4Ghz Pentium 4 also points toward the new 'better, not faster' school of thought. Most modern PCs (and to a lesser extent, Pocket PCs) have an immense amount of horsepower under the bonnet. The question is, can this power be used for good, or for awesome? ;-) To be truly successful does complex technology needs to disappear? Marc Benioff, the boss of Salesforce.com reckons that you need to push all the complexity to the back end in order to make the front end very simple. What's your take? Can computing complexity be tamed and can IT deliver a kinder, simpler life?
""It is time for us to rise up with a profound demand," declared the late Michael Dertouzos in his 2001 book, "The Unfinished Revolution": "Make our computers simpler to use!" Donald Norman, a long-standing advocate of design simplicity, concurs. "Today's technology is intrusive and overbearing. It leaves us with no moments of silence, with less time to ourselves, with a sense of diminished control over our lives," he writes in his book, "The Invisible Computer". "People are analogue, not digital; biological, not mechanical. It is time for human-centred technology, a humane technology."
The essential argument is that simplicity is the 'Next Big Thing' for the industry. Gartner reckons that IT complexity will cost firms worldwide some US$750Bn and that 70-80% of IT spending goes on fixing things rather than buying new systems. Chris Capossela, the head of Microsoft's desktop applications says that technology has perversely ended up making life more complex. Intel's abandonment of the 4Ghz Pentium 4 also points toward the new 'better, not faster' school of thought. Most modern PCs (and to a lesser extent, Pocket PCs) have an immense amount of horsepower under the bonnet. The question is, can this power be used for good, or for awesome? ;-) To be truly successful does complex technology needs to disappear? Marc Benioff, the boss of Salesforce.com reckons that you need to push all the complexity to the back end in order to make the front end very simple. What's your take? Can computing complexity be tamed and can IT deliver a kinder, simpler life?
