Technology Industry Hitting Mid-Life Crisis?
A couple of weeks ago Larry Ellison made a speech in which he projected that 1,000 companies would have to die in Silicon Valley and that innovation amongst software companies is dead. Biotech is where it's at. Granted Ellison loves to make bold statements (Network Computer anyone?), but I think he's got more truth in this statement, at least in the oversupply of companies. The development of $10Bln+ revenue companies in the software and technology industries makes it significantly harder for venture capitalists to build $1bln revenue companies, nor matter how much bluster accompanies the response from a VC when you ask the question. I agree with Ellison's assertion that significant innovation will come from bio-tech, but I do not believe that innovation in software is dead. The large fish in the pond just means that early developments will get picked up before they get a chance to hit the $500Mill run rate. No one wants to be the next case study in Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma Revisited," in 2005 (or whenver it gets published), so they all claim to have solved the problem, at least by press release.
Continuing this theme, there's an interesting article in today's NYT, "Technology Hits a Midlife Bump," (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/04/business/yourmoney/04TECH.html?th) that refers a new HBR piece: "IT Doesn't Matter," that its title suggests continues the extreme end of this discussion. They also discuss IBM's Irving Wladawsky-Berger, who is leading the autonomic computing effort from IBM. Wladawsky-Berger has a phrase that he says that we have entered the "post-technology era," (http://ww.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2002/tc20021231_1219.htm) his essential point is that speeds and feeds are not where it's at, but more a matter of what problems you solve. The last issue of the Herring had an outstanding piece on this, "The Death of Moore's Law." A theme that we will continue to evaluate it, as it appears to be on the lips of those "who have seen the report."
11:36:47 AM 
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