Facebook is toast and cloud computing is dead, says Forrester CEO
George Colony was speaking today at the analyst group’s European forum in Paris
By Mike Simons | Computerworld UK | Published: 14:52, 19 June 2012
Apple and Google will dominate the emerging digital economy while Facebook ‘is toast,’ claimed George Colony, CEO of Forrester, in the opening key note of the analyst group’s European forum in Paris.
Colony’s provocative predictions came at the conclusion of a session where he challenged IT leaders to ‘disrupt or be disrupted’ and pushed Forrester’s theme that Chief Information Officers and the departments they manage need to transform themselves to focus on business technology
The Forrester CEO focussed on the accelerating pace of innovation and predicted that mobile engagement will bring as profound a change to business technology as the client – server revolution of the 1980s.
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Mobile engagement, built on architectural change brought about by the app internet will replace the broader Web as the focus of innovation and change, he said.
For CIOs it means, “You are going to put your company in the pocket of customers so that when they need you, they are in contact and you are there for them…anytime, anywhere.”
Mobile engagement brings insight from a range of technologies:
• Devices and sensors - essentially location, identity and behaviour.
• Historical perspectives from records, such as purchase history, order status, supply chain inventory and customer records.
• Social media.
• Public as-a-service capabilities, such as mapping smart products, which offer personal insights, such as health data.
These technologies feed into predictive analytics to yield what Colony dubbed ‘prognostics’ - or guides to action and available choices.
Colony insisted that the old PC model is dead and more controversially that the Cloud Computing model was also dead because it "doesn’t leverage power in your pocket". Future architecture will marry powerful data capabilities, held in the Cloud, with powerful apps on personal devices, he said.
Looking at the vendors that will dominate the future, Apple and Google will thrive in this mobile engagement dominated world, said Colony, while Amazon will also be a competitor. Microsoft, which yesterday announced its tablet computer, has a chance.
"I don’t know if it will be successful," said Colony. "We haven’t lived with Windows 8 yet."
He then described Facebook as "half way there," before adding: "I think Facebook is toast…the company is in major trouble around mobile engagement and the app Internet."
Why else would CEO Mark Zuckerberg buy Instagram or be talking about launching a mobile phone, he asked.
Comments
Dave said: Mr Colony is badly confused Not about Facebook I think hes spot-on there as well as his points about Apple and Google But Cloud computing is no where near dead
Mike_Acker said: 1 FB has egged itself terribly by attempting to change everyones email preference it will be hard for it to regain trust particularly as it has been comming under increasing scrutiny regarding its privacy practices Conclusion FB wont go away but has no chance of achieving the dominance its author seeks2 cloud computing everyone knows this is un-reliable and the storm in Virginia yesterday simply adds a solid example to the generally held concern regarding rain-outs3 mobil is simply embraced as an addition to the ever our expanding digital activities4 BYOD Corporate Policy will describe devices and software approvedrequired It will not turn employees into a Cowboy Stampede over IT Services
pow1983 said: The Cloud has existed for ages it just gained a buzzword EgEmail and web hostinghas been around for donkeys years only now its got an interface for joe bloggs and a stupid hat to go with it I personally have my own cloud at home so that my information wont be analyzed by someone I dont know or sold without meknowing I would never ever put company data on the cloud except in a websitemarketing form