Going From Innovation To Renovation In Software
from the it's-about-time-we-made-things-work dept
Wide ranging, but very interesting, interview with Ray Lane over at News.com. He believes that we’re entering a phase of “renovation” instead of “innovation” when it comes to software, and he’s not sure how Silicon Valley will adapt to that. Basically, what he means is that enough customers have gotten sick of the fact that all this expensive software we buy doesn’t work, that many companies are focused on simply making software work the way it should work, rather than coming up with entirely new things. It’s a different mindset and he’s not entirely sure that everyone in Silicon Valley will be able to handle it, though, he believes we’ll adapt. Basically, he’s recognizing the need for the core of the software industry to mature. This also doesn’t mean no innovation, but there will still be innovation at the edges as well as innovation in getting things to work. For example, he talks about the importance of making various systems work together. Instead of telling people they need to install entirely new systems we need to focus on ways to make the old systems work with each other. In other words, taking the need to change away from the end user, and putting it in the software. He also discusses the rise of open source technologies, and basically says that FUD and complacency are all that have kept proprietary software ahead of competing open source offerings.
