ORLANDO, Fla. -- By the time you finish reading this sentence, your competition will have come up with 100 innovative ideas, claimed your customers as their own and drunk your milkshake. OK, there may not be
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blood, but by golly, it's not so far from the truth, thanks to the reality
of digital disruption.
Forgive our alarmist tone. This week's SearchCIO.com Searchlight is coming to you from Forrester Research Inc.'s Digital Disruption Forum in Orlando, Fla., where we've heard one example after another about the breakneck pace of innovation, the shifting playing fields, and how CIOs need to be involved or be left behind. D'oh! You probably knew Nike is now in the software business with its fitness apps and sensors. But did you know Monsanto is as well? The controversial agribiz is hoping to put itself at farmers' fingertips by outfitting tractors with tech that tells them what to sow when. Whoa Nelly!
As Forrester analyst and author of forthcoming tome The Disruptor's Handbook, James McQuivey put it: Digital disruption is a discipline, not a trend, and there is no product on the planet that can't be digitized. So, if you're thinking of riding this one out to see where it goes, you'll be standing in a dust cloud.
Just this week, two tales of major digital disruptions thrust themselves into the Searchlight -- the growing Apple-esque fervor around the pending release of Microsoft's Surface tablet, and Newsweek's announcement that it will switch to a digital-only format. It's all happening so fast, and you can read more about it soon on SearchCIO.com.
Check out SearchCIO.com's own coverage of these topics
Cloud-based storage gaining traction
Disruptive innovation vs. performance improvement
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- So, how much preemptive craziness is there for the Microsoft Surface tablet? Well, the lower-priced models have sold out in presale, and the Windows group president has apparently lost his mind over them.
- As Microsoft well knows, however, sometimes the disruptor gets disrupted, as its former partner Acer is aiming to remind them, along with pretty much everyone else.
- Speaking of Microsoft and craziness, the company this week decided to make a foray into the IT hardware appliance business. Actually, it's not as strange as it sounds, since it's bound to be a boost to Azure, as our sister site SearchCloudStorage explains.
- Digital disruption or digital delusion? Newsweek's CEO says "dumping print liberates us." Reuters' Felix Salmon essentially finishes that proclamation with the words, "to fail miserably."
- One final disruption: Cloud HR and financial systems software provider Workday goes public and gets all feisty: "The incumbents are not prepared." They're looking at you, Oracle and SAP.
Let us know what you think about the story; email Karen Goulart, Features Writer.
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