I was chatting to Richard Holway earlier. He is chairman of the Prince's Trust Technology Leadership group, Holway is due to speak next Tuesday about the effect of technology like Facebook on corporate IT. Holway believes IT departments are laggards, unwilling to adopt new exciting technology. IT missed the web; no doubt it will miss social media.
In Holway's vision of the IT landscape, Microsoft simply makes the OS. Users won't think about how to organise their Windows desktop icons, but instead use their own workspace, what Holway calls their MyTop, to keep track of friends, web links and useful information.
The key thing about his vision is that this information can be accessed from any device. To make this possible Holway believes users will require ubiquitous WiMax for fast mobile Internet and the ability to run applications as a software service. If such an idea took off I wonder if IT departments would recognise the end of Microsoft's stranglehold on IT?
