Office 2.0 Conference

I am probably not the only one out there wondering if there will be a 2009 Office 2.0 conference.  Certainly, I could just ask Ismael instead of this post.  If the event does not happen this year, it may be because of Intalio's explosive success.  Or perhaps because last year was a little quieter, and less energy-filled, than 2007.

But upon reflection, it isn't because Office 2.0 is dead or over.

With Microsoft having recently bought "office.com" and finally preparing to launch its own, 100% web-based simplified version of its Office suite, one could argue the battle was won, much like Salesforce.com's battle for "no software" clearly is over (hence, their need to shift to a cloud paradigm, since the world pretty much agrees SaaS is fine for most enterprises and businesses).

In fact, thinking about it, I would propose it's about a 10-12 year journey.  It seems to me there are two ways technology and software experience paradigm shifts.  The first is to create a new category or experience that did not exist before.  When done right, this can explode.  Look at Facebook or Twitter's or YouTube's growth in just a few years.

Office 2.0 however is not about doing something never possible before.  Even its most exciting elements, collaboration and visibility, exist in on-premise solutions in one form or another.  Rather, it's about making your core business applications 10x more useful than before, with the web as the vehicle to do so.

Those paradigm shifts, from one way of doing something, to a new way (vs. a brand new segment) seem to take about 10-12 years.  Take a look at digital photography for example.  The switch took over 10 years to go mainsteam.  In the beginning, analog film was hardly broken.  But now, it's somewhere between a joke and the refuge of an extremely small number of art photographers.

Looking back at Office 2.0 circa the end of 2005, it was defined by Ismael in a very narrow fashion, as a sort of Network Computer 2.0 used to run core businesses applications entirely on the web.  A nichey concept at the time.  Today, that idea has become mainstream and even so obvious to not even to be a distinct concept.

Penetration, however, remains similar to where digital photography was around 2001.  We are 30-40% along this journey and road.  Whether there is an Office 2.0 conference this year or not (in its past form), I'd challenge us all to rethink how we can collaborate together on its next phase, from mainstream to ubiquity.

There's a new term in the managed services space -- Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS), and it's an obvious extension of the SaaS model. Desktone is a company that provides DaaS capabilities to service providers. Its customers, according to CEO Harry Ruda, currently include Verizon and Softbank Telecom.

Ruda characterizes DaaS as a service whereby users obtain their computing services through a remote connection over a network. The physical compute power, if you will, is delivered through a service provider and paid for on some usage basis.

In other words, users can access operating system and applications through a completely hosted system, and the service provider would be responsible at the back-end for storing data, upgrading applications, updating virus protection, among other activities.

Computing Power of a Utility
It relies on the whole concept of utility computing, in which compute power is delivered the same way electricity is -- when you want it in a metered fashion. DaaS proponents even promise that their service, like electricity, is instant-on, because there's no booting of an operating system.

I'm skeptical about a technology that even its proponents admit doesn't work well over wireless connections, when you consider that laptops now outsell desktops because of their ability to work even when users are disconnected.

However, proponents insist that by handing management of PC resources over to a service provider, companies of almost any size can cut maintenance and technical support costs, as well as increase security because the service provider can focus more on patches and virus protection.

Another pioneer in this new category, MokaFive offers a DaaS subscription service for $100 per user per year that uses a virtual machine, which they describe as "centrally managed but locally executed."

That means end-users can choose from among any number of devices -- laptops, Macintoshes, smartphones, tablets -- and have corporate data protected, but can still use their chosen device for other applications or personal information.

Evolution is Easier than a Revolution
The arguments and variations of DaaS go on and on. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the DaaS model may be the fact that it requires extensive re-thinking of one's infrastructure -- either by replacing desktop computers with disk-less computers or significantly upgrading the network bandwidth, or both.

In contrast to DaaS, most of the current "fill-in-the-blank" as a Service models have been tried and proven, because they're a logical evolution from existing operational models. My skepticism remains intact.

Source: Business Technology Roundtable

This year's theme of taking Office 2.0 into the enterprise was a good and timely once with terrific speakers and case studies.  However, I wonder if the theme will be as on point in 2009.  With HP laying off 25,000+, Dell and others forecasting large IT cutbacks, and the implosion of the largest buyers of IT software, financial services ... I would posit the hope for Office 2.0 2009 is the SMB.  With the VSB the target of 2006; the early adopters for 2007; and the enterprise for 2008, hopefully 2009 will be the time for the traditional laggards, the overworked and underresourced SMBs, to adopt Office 2.0 more rapidly.  I believe we are seeing a very rapid and fundamental shift in Enterprise 2.0 buying habits from "bring it inhouse now, it's dirt cheap and great and works now not later" to more traditional ROI analyses with much longer sales cycle and cost justifications.  Combined with IT spend freezes spreading across companies as I type, the enterprise boost for Office 2.0 may prove to be just that -- a boost but not the long term driver of adoption and change.