Agreed. However, I have noticed that alot of old world companies were usually late to the party with new world technology.
For example, Nortel and Lucent dominated switched telephone (POTS) gear. They pooh poohed Cisco as an unlikely upstart with their new-fangled IP gear. I remember the first Cisco VOIP phones were absolute trash and everyone made fun of them. Now Nortel is going bankrupt, Lucent was acquired by another company, and Cisco has number one market share in enterprise phone systems, all of which they sell are VOIP.
That will be the case with energy companies as well. Oil and gas companies will putter along with the same old ideology, completely missing the turning point. Folks like you are doing just the same thing, despite all the evidence that we're in the midst of the turning point right now. The funny thing is that in Cisco's world it took 10 years for the phone market to flip on its head and for Nortel to go from King to Pauper and Cisco from Pauper to King. In the energy world it will take 20, 30, or maybe even more years for the same thing to happen. But even at that slow pace of change, I'm pretty sure the old companies like Exxon, and the old style thinkers like yourself, will still miss the opportunities presented by that change.
Old habits and old thinking die hard. |
