In Nicolas Carr's bestseller, The Big Switch, he speaks of past, present and future trends in the evolution of technology. He makes some very good observations and predictions that I can see happening today at SAP. Here is an excerpt from The Big Switch:
A hundred years ago, companies stopped generating their own power with steam engines and dynamos and plugged into the newly built electric grid. The cheap power pumped out by electric utilities didn’t just change how businesses operate. It set off a chain reaction of economic and social transformations that brought the modern world into existence. Today, a similar revolution is under way. Hooked up to the Internet’s global computing grid, massive information-processing plants have begun pumping data and software code into our homes and businesses. This time, it’s computing that’s turning into a utility.
Thirty years ago, companies started building their own expensive internal EDI software and hardware infrastructures, staffing these departments and beginning long multi-year integration and implementation projects. That was the only way to implement EDI at the time. Today, there is a new Network-centric model that is revolutionizing SAP EDI. SAP has invested and become a co-owner in a global EDI and B2B exchange that is hooked up to the Internet's global computing grid, with massive information-processing plants and provides SAP users with EDI and B2B connectivity as a utility. This new utility paradigm, will result in many of the same revolutionary changes Mr. Carr sees in other industries and a permanent change to the world of EDI.
Providing EDI and B2B connectivity in a SAP-centric utility model is the next logical step. Voice and data communications are all supported by utility services with monthly service fees - B2B and EDI data communications is a natural next step.
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Author Kevin Benedict
http://b2b-bpo.blogspot.com
I am a loose canon. No individual or company, no matter how much I try, is willing to be responsible for my comments. So alas, they are mine alone.
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