When someone walks into a meeting late, and there are people in the room who are just being introduced, I typically say to the latecomer, “Welcome - hey - as an icebreaker, everyone here already told a story from their childhood. Something involving fire would be good.” Once in awhile they oblige! Well, I suppose, being a late comer to the blogosphere I should go ahead and tell you one of mine.

I have been a dedicated fan of popular music from the time I was three years old. I still have a copy of the Beatles record, “Rubber Soul” that I played repeatedly, sneaking into my sister’s room to use the record player. At that early age I became a complete Anglophile. Ten years later, I was spinning anything out of Britain from the progressive rock acts of the time, including Jethro Tull, Yes, and so on. The “new wave” movement hit in the late 70’s and early 80’s and I was then again hooked on all types of creative bands such as Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins, and others that mixed fashion, electronics and lots of attitude. My horizons expanded a bit from the 90’s on. For me, women saved the 90’s between Tori, Fiona, Natalie and other similar artists. The new millennium has my ever expanding collection taking up lots of disk space with music as rich and varied as any that has come before. Through each of these decades, I have played music, collected music, and attended live performances as frequently as possible. I would define myself as a music “aficionado”.

In many ways, my career in information technology fits in rather nicely with this passion for all things musical. When you read music, it is like its own language with a unique alphabet and organization. This is also true in the IT world with the programming languages and scripts that drive our solutions. Okay, sometimes the results are fairly mundane, but often, particularly in the last 10 years, there are amazing displays of creativity, all powered by new tools and technology. Each groundbreaking musical or technical achievement typically leads to a new longer period of assimilation, during which the new is made more broadly appealing, and is subsumed into the mainstream. Additional creativity is applied to create variations on the new themes, and spread the word. You can witness this happening in both the music and technology industries today.

We are in the midst of a groundbreaking era. Net based communities and social networks are being used to revolutionize software development, distribution and support providing these solutions are under open source licensing agreements. This disruptive market trend is represented by these new solutions, whether they are delivered via open source tools and platforms, or through subscription based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models. We are entering and to an extent, are already in a period of assimilation for these groundbreaking methods of IT delivery. These solutions fit the way we want to try to pay for technology - they may start as free or for trial usage, but when they are implemented, we will subscribe to the solution, on a basis more commensurate with our usage and the value generated by that usage. Traditional software vendors are finding it difficult or impossible to respond to this disruptive trend and move into these new markets effectively. It is truly an exciting time for the industry.

These developments parallel events in the music business. Providers such as iTunes, Amazon, and social networks such as MySpace threaten physical media for survival. Just last year, the band Radiohead offered its new music release for download without a major record label’s distribution - on their site - and for a price you set. Downloadable music, priced if you like by the song, is overtaking preconfigured record sales. My year-end mix in 2007 was built 95% from songs that I downloaded selectively. One of my favorite haunts of the last 20 years, Tower Records, just went out of business. Traditional record companies are struggling to survive technologies, which have disrupted decades-old music business processes. While old models change, new ones come in to take their place.

The entries in this blog will be covering developments in the IT marketplace from the perspective of the CIO. I will pay particular attention to open source and SaaS solutions. I hope to also find moments to share a bit of news or information from the world of music along the way.

 

 Tags: Database, SaaS

 Posted in Database, Open Source, SaaS

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Database, Open Source, SaaS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.