Michael: I listened to Capellas speech this morning. It was the first time I heard him speak. You have given a report so I will summarise my own views.
Marking out of 10.
1. Review of trends in IT. 6
2. Style 7
3. Attempt to answer his own challenge to give clear and compelling answers to questions about what COMPAQ is: 6
On the basis of what I heard, this is what we can expect tomorrow:
1. The Internet is not merely a craze, or a fascination which has already peaked. It has just begun. Changes in the infrastructure e.g. unlimited bandwidth, wireless, unlimited storage, changes in appliances to replace or radically chage the look and functioning and role PC's, will unleash the power of the internet so that it permeates all aspects of our economy and culture and create new applications. The US leads the world in its adoption and fascination with the Internet. Some Northern European countries are moving fast. But it is wrong to suppose that all countries and cultures have adopted it at the same speed or in the same way. One size does not fit all. Manufacturers cannot apply mass production as efficently as they would like because they have to adapt to local context. But the differences in the way geo-political regions use the internet will be reflected in their relative posperity and strength.
2. Corporations have to be prepared to cannabilise themselves, reinvent themselves undergo constant transformation. Huge enterprises which have taken years and huge investment sums to build up IT infrastructure will need to increase their spending on IT by 25-30% and be prepared to radically change the way they do business.
The business rwhich learns to learn, just like the individual, will be the business that survives and prospers. Change is so quick that 5 years is about as far as one can see.
7. In this brave new world it will no longer be acceptable to have a maximum response time of 8 seconds (he should have tried to use SI today) repsonse will have to be instantaneous: storage will be unlimited; the machinery behind it will be 110% reliable and fail-safe.
8. No single company can handle it all.
9. Compaq's role - like IBM's - is to be at the heart of this brave new world. It will provide its heart. The big reliable, non stop machinery holding it all together, giving it speed and durability. It will provide the storage, moving to No. 1 provider of storage. It will provide it with the new, massed produced consumer appliances, and the new generation of PC's. And as for content, COMPAQ will maintain and devlop strategic partnerships. Instead of being partner to all - which means ng partner to none - it will cultivate partnerships with leaders in their field and go deep with them, working together on the future, on design and application. Microsoft will not be the dominant partner although it is one of the main partners. There are others - Oracle, Novell and others. |
