The new marketing term is getting more and more traction in the IT industry; “Post-PC era” is the new buzz term to add to the long list of IT trends that are transforming the IT business. Although I like the marketing buzz word, I question if there really is a “post era” as the term suggest. In my opinion there isn’t. It’s just a natural evolution from another trend that has been going on for some time now : Consumerization of Enterprise IT.
There is a transformation going on in Enterprise IT. Using Information Technology in an enterprise environment always has been in the mindset of “we need to control what our users do”. This wasn’t a big surprise since most users of IT resources weren’t savvy with the usage of IT. But over the last decades IT has made it’s way into every home and everybody now a day has computer, laptop, media device, tablet and / or mobile smartphone. So at home the “Post PC-era” already kicked in.
Besides the new devices to access information, people also started to interact in a different. This way due to technical enhancements, but also with the arrival of new types of applications. Facebook, Hotmail, Picasa, LinkedIn. All applications that are accessible via the web, applications that are living in “the cloud”. Not that the user cared where this application lived. As long as she / he can access it anytime, anywhere.
But what about Enterprise IT?
There it’s a little bit different. Changing the direction of your speedboat only takes seconds, changing a mammoth tanker to take another course takes a little bit longer. Same goes for consumers and Enterprise IT. Consumers over the last decade have been exposed to nice new technologies and applications, they are easy to adapt and change, while Enterprise IT is still stuck in the PC era. A static desktop, accessible from one location with applications installed locally.
Thankfully we now see a paradigm shift happening. No longer Enterprise IT is leading the way into IT technology, but the IT needs of consumers drives the development of important IT tech. Ok, this consumerization isn’t something new, but the impact of this we now see more and more being applied in Enterprise IT environments. This trend improves organizations, reducing the amount of money spend on IT and bringing agility to the business. The business being able to focus on its business, not on IT.
So living in a “Post-PC era” is that such a bad thing? I don’t think so, bring it on!