Apple and Google will dominate the emerging digital economy while Facebook ‘is toast,’ claimed George Colony, CEO of Forrester, in the opening key note of the analyst group’s European forum in Paris.
Colony’s provocative predictions came at the conclusion of a sessionwhere he challenged IT leaders to ‘disrupt or be disrupted’ and pushedForrester’s theme that Chief Information Officers and thedepartmentsthey manage need to transform themselves to focus on business technology
The Forrester CEO focussed on the accelerating pace of innovation andpredicted that mobile engagement will bring as profound a change tobusiness technology as the client -server revolution of the 1980s.
Mobile engagement, built onarchitectural change brought about by theapp internet will replace the broader Web as the focus of innovationand change, he said.
For CIOs it means, “You are going to put your company in the pocket ofcustomers so that when they need you, they are in contact and you arethere for them any time, anywhere.”
Mobile engagement brings insight from a range of technologies:
– Devices and sensors – essentially location, identity and behaviour.
– Historical perspectives from records, such as purchase history, orderstatus, supply chain inventory and customer records.
– Social media.
– Public as-a-service capabilities, such as mapping smart products,whichoffer personal insights, such as health data.
These technologies feed into predictive analytics to yield what Colonydubbed ‘prognostics’ – or guides to action and available choices.
Cloud computing model “dead”
Colony insisted that the old PC model is dead and more controversiallythat the Cloud Computing model was alsodead because it “doesn’tleverage power in your pocket”. Future architecture will marry powerfuldata capabilities, held in the Cloud, with powerful apps on personaldevices, he said.
Looking at the vendors that will dominate the future, Apple and Googlewill thrive in this mobile engagement dominated world, said Colony,while Amazon will also be a competitor. Microsoft, which yesterdayannounced its tablet computer, has a chance.
“I don’t know if it will be successful,” said Colony. “We haven’t livedwith Windows 8 yet.”
He then described Facebook as “half way there,” before adding: “I thinkFacebook is toastthe company is in major trouble around mobileengagement and the app Internet.”
Why else would CEO Mark Zuckerberg buy Instagram or be talking aboutlaunching a mobile phone, he asked.