December 1999

BY KEVIN MAYER

Does the market seem underwhelmed by this or that technology, or by one or another product? Well, any lack of enthusiasm is merely temporary. As soon as the Y2K housecleaning is behind us, all will be well. Everyone will be ready to start upgrading and rebuilding their communications systems. Or so we might hope.

Such hope, while comforting, may be misplaced. It might even blind us to alternative scenarios. For my part, I'd like to introduce at least one alternative scenario. It may prove more challenging, but more inspiring as well, if inspiration should be needed — if, after December 31, 1999, the world isn't suddenly a more agreeable place.

PERSISTENT CONSTRAINTS
The approach of the new millennium presents us with an opportunity to reexamine where we’ve been and where we’re going. We may, as the result of a sufficiently broad reexamination, uncover a few things we’d have rather stayed invisible.

A few less-than-thrilling realizations:

• In the world of communications, so many elements — the systems, the applications, the habits of everyone involved — are so interconnected and interdependent that it can be hard to imagine changing any of them without changing all of them.
• History is drearily inescapable. Existing systems depend on code written by legions of programmers who have long since gone — into retirement, if not into the hereafter. Those who have succeeded these programmers may have no idea how all of the old code actually works. Such ignorance could bar any piecemeal (or scalable) revisions. For who could say whether any revisions in one part of a program might cause the whole program, or other programs, to fail? And so the influence of departed programmers persists. In a sense, they can exert more influence than the active programmers.
• Legacy systems are astoundingly (even appallingly) long-lived. More than a few museum pieces are still in service. Occasionally, I hear of legacy systems being replaced only after it becomes clear that there is absolutely no recourse. A predictive dialing system incapable of navigating new dialing plans, say. Or a mainframe retired because its hard drive keeps failing, and replacement parts simply no longer exist. In the absence of such emergencies, many old systems keep on chugging along, because replacing them seems too disruptive.

Such sobering realizations temper enthusiasm for anything labeled new and improved. In any case, many people are weary of hype, and prone to doubt extravagant claims for new technologies and products. So, when marketers announce breathlessly that Moore’s Law will soon carry the day in telephony, and not just in general computing, the response may be less than wildly enthusiastic.

“GETTING IT” JUST WHEN THE “IT” IS DUE FOR CHANGE?
Why wouldn’t everyone be thrilled to hear that telephony is ready to emulate the trends established by general computing? Not only might we expect dramatic gains in processing power and bandwidth availability, we could look forward to a livelier development environment, as proprietary systems cede ground to open, more conveniently programmable systems.

It may be that we’re looking at a package deal here, and that some elements of the package are less attractive than others. Some trends from general computing, it seems, are simply unwelcome. For example, some people resent creeping feature-ism, also known as the Thunderbird effect.

Vendors, it seems, cannot resist pressures to release at least two upgrades each year. The purpose of these upgrades? More features, typically. Features keep getting piled on regardless of how unwieldy the product may become, and regardless of whether the product’s integrity is compromised. To illustrate this process, we can bring up the example of the Ford Thunderbird, which was originally a light, fun, exciting car. Today, the original Thunderbird is a much-coveted classic. And the new Thunderbird? It’s just another bulbous, ponderous machine, scarcely distinguishable from any number of other bulbous, ponderous machines lumbering out of Detroit.

A constant stream of upgrades invites cynicism for reasons that go beyond aesthetics. Some people feel that upgrade cycles represent a scam, a game you’re bound to lose no matter what you do. You can refuse to implement an upgrade, in which case you’ll soon encounter compatibility problems, or you can obediently play your part, at no small cost.

Ignoring these concerns, vendors continue to issue warnings about how competitive the world is, how easy it is to fall behind, and how necessary it is to seize competitive advantage. Vendors seem unaware that they risk sounding like arms merchants, ever eager to do whatever they can to sustain an arms race.

But how can you generate enthusiasm for an arms race? Why shouldn’t prospective customers for new technologies and products feel suspicious when told that competitive advantage is primarily a technical issue, or a matter of writing a sufficiently large check? If that were the case, wouldn’t any competitive advantage thus obtained prove ephemeral? Wouldn’t it disappear as soon as some competitor wrote a check of their own?

DETOURS IN THE ROAD AHEAD
Are we approaching a point where current trends are unsustainable? Or are many people just beginning to feel that they would prefer that these trends really were unsustainable? (As in, stop the world, I want to get off.)

In either case, it might be just as well to keep widespread skepticism and discontent in mind. It might be time for a change in emphasis when talking about new technologies and products. That is, it might be a good idea to take the emphasis off of the technology altogether. Instead of characterizing technology as a kind of magic dust to sprinkle over your business, at ever shorter intervals, how about treating the technology as something, well, mundane? Say, technology as humble facilitator?

A couple of trends already point in this direction. For example, we’re beginning to hear more about information appliances, specialized devices that by no means pretend to be all things to all people. Such appliances raise the possibility that we’ll be able to do without bloated, all-purpose devices — at least for some applications.

Why should that be so appealing? Presumably, no one information device could pretend to be the center of your world, to be indispensable. Any information device would have a place in your life, or not, at your pleasure. Never would you feel that you exist to sustain it. You could take it or leave it, like any other consumer item.

Another trend emphasizing a consumer’s point of view, as opposed to a technophile’s point of view, is the introduction of service platforms, and the proliferation of enhanced services. This trend may allow IT staff (people whom you’d expect to be technophiles) to enjoy the consumer’s role, at least sometimes. By subscribing to enhanced voice and data services, IT staff could devote their energies to projects more central to the mission of whatever enterprise they may serve.

If such were the case, new communications technologies really would contribute to competitive advantage — simply by staying out of the way. IT staff, free of the burden of becoming experts in voice/data convergence, could concentrate on enhancing whatever core competencies were most appropriate for the businesses they served.

*In this article’s title, I’ve resorted to the word melencholia (oddly spelled, I know) because the article’s substance puts me in mind of Albrecht Drer’s 1514 etching, Melencholia I. The etching, an allegory of creativity in abeyance, depicts a brooding angel, seated but looking more thwarted than rested, amidst a clutter of neglected tools. The overall impression is one of frustrated vision, and it is powerfully realized. Evidently, Drer saw no need to improve on the image, for no other versions of Melencholia are known. That is, there is no Melencholia II — or I.II, for that matter.