One of the more subversive ideas kicking around right now is the notion that power is moving away from the centre to the edge of business. An example from Stowe Boyd:
The power has shifted from the center to the edge, from the organization/group to the individual. We, the edglings, are operating in a new context, of our own making, and we won’t go back, we won’t give it back. And the centroids will have to realize that something profound has happened, over here, out at the edge, where the social applications are being invented.
You can write that off as a quasi-political rant if you want but there is a lot of truth behind the rhetoric.
Depending on how you you envision the ‘edge,’ this could equally apply in the power relationship that exists between customers and software providers. The Severn Delta example I discussed last week is a case at point. To reprise, a combination of business economics, choice and availability of open source software allowed the company to save money by not getting locked into a supplier. Power exercised at the edge?
Inside SAP, ‘subversive’ forces are at work. SAPper Craig Cmehil has talked a lot about Zoho but it wasn’t until I saw this comment in response to queries I raised with Craig that I realised the ‘edge’ may have significant potential power:
…during the Bangalore SDN Day Hyther from Zoho showed a presentation where Zoho was embedded into Duet for example and I talked about the Zoho/SAP demo I prepared for Office 2.0 (still need to blog it man I’ve been lazy)
The possibilities are already there and Notebook could bring even more a point and click rich media environment allowing for collaboration and fully connected to the SAP system – kind of blows the mind for what is possible…
If you look at the full capabilities Zoho offers, it could be a direct long term replacement for Microsoft Office plus a slew of other bits and pieces. So when you have someone inside SAP supporting this type of service and building stuff with it so relatively quickly after SAP/Microsoft launched Duet, then you have to ask: What are the implications for SAP end users?
Those edge workers who need to collaborate on projects and want an ‘instant’ environment could choose Zoho with no internal IT penalty because it’s a fully hosted application set. The extent to which those same workers could use (in this case SAP) data inside Zoho in an effective manner would very much depend on how easy it is to cobble the two together. I’m no geek but from what Craig has said so far, it doesn’t appear that difficult, even though there are issues with the Zoho API when creating desktop widgets.
It would require either SAP to provide the connection points and/or internal customer development to make this fly. That butts you straight up against IT. As Rod Boothby has found, it can mean a degree of resistance and strange comparisons. The hippie in me (I remember the Summer of Love) would like to think that resistance will be swept aside by the rising tide of clamouring users wanting to get ‘stuff’ done. Somehow, I doubt that will happen any time soon.
The fact remains that while it is interesting to see large software houses recognising the potential value of these fast track services, few people outside the geek world even know this stuff exists. Millions know about Microsoft.
Even where people do see value, there is a mountain of bureaucracy, politicking (among vendors), regulation, compliance and goodness knows what to overcome. Large vendors could do a great deal to facilitate this kind of innovation but I’ve not seen a developed business model that would take these ideas from Craig’s development lab out to the wider world. Indeed, SAPs own business model works against this happening.
SAPper Charles Zedlewski says that if 3rd party developers want SAPs attention, then there’s a bunch of hurdles they need to overcome. I’ve heard Shai Agassi, no. 2-3 at SAP say much the same thing. Edge thinkers will argue Craig is turning the idea of co-opetition on its head and, as a result, producing attention grabbing cool stuff. Although Craig has powerful allies who see how the world of work is changing he’s a single voice in a relatively small team who has to persuade execs that his ideas make commercial sense. I hope Craig succeeds and inadvertently spreads the kind of cancerous edge rot Stowe describes.
At the other end of the spectrum, Sage has talked about moving away from Microsoft technology. It would be interesting to see what their development folk think of this kind of stuff. If they’re interested, I’ve got some ideas how that might work.
