In 2005, Forrester researcher Christopher Mines wrote a paper called
“The next big thing for IT” in which he talked about the “waves” of computing. That same topic has been addressed by a number of researchers and IT vendors over the years. In the wrong wave, a cool marketing slogan like “the network is the computer” does not make much sense. In the 4th wave, it’s too obvious to even state.
At my local book store, people are now buying electronic book readers, “the nook”, for just $149. It goes without saying that the nook comes with Wi-Fi (or 3G+Wi-Fi for $50 more). The same device without the network makes no sense.
Here is how I see the overlapping, major waves of computing:
- Mainframes, which achieved critical mass in commercial deployment in the late 1950s and 1960s.
- Minicomputers, which distributed computing beyond a centralized mainframe in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s and 2000s, UNIX based minicomputers dominated.
- Personal computers — further distributed computing to the desk and then the lap in the 1980s and 1990s. PCs went from office to home, from desktop to servers. Laptops became wireless and mobile computing was born.
- The open Internet and web-based media from the lap to the hand — smartphones (Android, iPhone, BackBerry, J2ME), mass-market cellular phones, tablets/iPads, e-book readers, game systems, etc.
Another marketing slogan that seemed revolutionary in the 3rd wave –
any where, any time, any device – goes without saying in the 4th wave.
PCs – in traditional (deskside/desktop/laptop) and non-traditional (netbook/tablet/thin-client) forms are still very significant in the 4th wave, but so too are large numbers of non-PC devices. In fact, you can think of the 4th wave as the post-PC-only era.
If you are running a 3rd wave infrastructure designed to support only PCs, it’s time to make some changes and get ready for the fourth wave. By migrating to IdoMail from EcoSuite, we can help you get ready!
