A lot of technology is being hyped yet again for 2016. For example, Juniper Research (courtesy of Entrepreneur) says the big trends to expect this year are:
- Virtual Reality
- Social Robots
- Wearable Technology
- Supercomputer Cell Phones
- Multi-System Screen Sharing
- Bitcoin
- Cloud-Based Video Gaming
- Professional Video Gamers Make it Big
- Better Data Protection
- Crowdfunding
Not only is there nothing new here (as some of this technology has been emerging for over two decades), but there is nothing that really helps business operate better.
- Virtual Reality can create more immersive training simulations, but most business don’t need that.
- Social Robots can take the automated attendant to the store, but it’s still just a fancy kiosk.
- Giving everyone Google Glass isn’t going to make the world smarter (although it may make the NSA happier).
- We don’t need a super computer in our cell phone.
- Platform standardization makes multi-system screen sharing easy, especially if you are running virtual machines in the cloud. (And the now defunct SunRay made this a reality 15 years ago.) And if you don’t have the right information in the first place, who cares what screen it’s on.
- Bitcoin is no more secure than the person holding the key.
- If Psy’s Gangnam Style has wasted over 16,000 many years by June, 2014 (Source: The Economist), how many million of man years are being wasted by MMORPGs that are emerging in the cloud?
- What has the world come to when “sport” is playing a video game?
- Data protection always gets better, and is always better than 99% of people and organization’s need.
- Crowds aren’t always wise. They have a history of lynching.
And since Procurement is still often treated as the Island of Misfit Toys, if the business isn’t getting anything good, what is Procurement getting?