The Big Picture

If there is one thing that the IT industry thrives on, it is hype. Here is an industry capable of taking any mundane thing and giving it a PR twist to make it sound like out of this world.

Think of the technologies that we were told are ‘next generation’; those that would revolutionize computing. Forget the revolution bit, how many of them are even around today?

One of the questions I get asked frequently is how to wade through all the hype and make out what is true and what is not, how to distinguish a real winner from a balloon of hot air.

I have three simple rules that I have used effectively all these years.

Rule number one: Take anything that claims to be ‘next generation’ with not just a pinch, but a whole sack-full of salt. Basically, disbelieve the claim outright.

Rule number two: Remember that form changes more frequently than function. Changes of form do not constitute a revolution.

Rule number three: Fit the claim into a bigger picture and see whether it makes sense or not.

Rule number one is straight- forward, so let’s look at the second one. Fundamental changes in the way we do things are few and occur rarely. Let us take an example. Consider storage devices. There have only been a few changes in the basic storage media–paper, magnetic tape, magnetic disc, optical disc, and solid-state storage–in the fifty years or so that data storage has been around. But the number of storage products that have seen the light of the day is more than anyone would care to count. 

That brings us to rule three. My favorite example here is WAP. What was the most common use given for WAP? That you could check stock prices and buy and sell shares while traveling to office everyday! Let us fit this into the big picture.

How many of you would make split-second decisions on buying or selling a few lakh rupees worth of shares while traveling in a bus? You would have to be a wizard at the stock market to be able to do that. Even then it would be a very tough call indeed.None of the investors I know would take decisions like that regularly. In short, the promise attributed to WAP did not fit into the big picture. It just did not make sense. No wonder that WAP did not quite become the ‘next-generation’ killer application that it was touted to be. This is not to say that WAP, or any other similarly touted technology or product, does not have potential. All that the big picture tells me is that WAP in its projected usage does not have the potential to be the killer application. WAP would have to find other more practical uses, if it were to become the killer.

Sounds simple? Then why don’t you start applying these rules yourselves?