Here comes the Open Web - Embrace it a critical response

This is a critical response to the article written by Jeffrey Hammond titled: “Here comes the Open Web - Embrace it!”

http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Features/Here-comes-the-Open-Web---Embrace-it!-81460.aspx

The open web is a culture that encourages easy access and openness to new technologies. It comprises of dynamic languages, HTML5 and a wider use of the internet for everything ranging, from social graphs to video encoding to payments and order management. The author said that the open web already has a big impact on consumer internet applications which will eventually spread into the corporate world and will be adopted in employee-focused web applications.

Firms that move quickly will have a greater competitive advantage as they can delight and engage their customers better on any devices. The author is of the opinion that all organisations will become a software development company of some sort and gives the following warnings:

• Competition will increase to attract the attention of third-party developers.
• Insurance companies, banks, governments, and retailers will be in a battle to attract developers so that they can develop online services as part of their information systems.
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• Flexibility and ease of adoption will win the day.
• Cloud services market segments like, platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), and are already leading the way in terms of flexibility giving developers more integration choices on how and with whom they integrate. If co-operate service platforms aren’t easy to adopt, developers will tend to stay away from their platforms and the business could suffer.
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• Proprietary Web technologies will slowly decline.
• Application servers specialised mobile middleware and browser plug-ins will disappear as the open web will be non-expensive and will attract developers as they don’t have to engage with a license runtime or purchasing organisation.
• Developer hiring patterns will shift.
• People who grew up on the web, specialising in consumer driven website development, are propelling the open web. These developers expect openness of technology, information and expertise.

The author concludes by encouraging organisations to embrace the open web and give the following recommendations:

• Learn the new platform: Not just technologies like HTML5.

• Determine how the Open Web will speed delivery and cut costs: Open web technologies like Python, Scala and Ruby are already showing compelling productivity gains.

• Decide how your teams need to prepare to successfully adopt Open Web technologies: Monitor and asses the open web technologies as well as your team’s readiness.

• Decide where you should start: All AD&D leaders should steer strategy toward Open Web technologies to better satisfy executive demand for mobile apps

• Develop new services and channels: Open Web APIs allows the next generation of Interoperability between organisations. Organisations should encourage their business partners to use the open web allowing for more productive firm services.

I do agree with some of the things that Mr. Jeffrey Hammond highlighted in his article. Sharing of content regardless of Data format and Platform is currently lacking on the web and there are a lot of benefits to be released if everyone adopted the open web. I also agree with the author that using technologies like HTML5 etc., will help get us there. But it is more than technologies, it is the standard that the technologies represent and organisations are already struggling to adopt not only HTML5, never mind the technologies that enable HTML5. To have a standard API that is used across organisations may be an impossible task as organisations see different benefits and advantages in using different technologies.

http://try.powermapper.com/Stats/HtmlVersions

Lastly I don’t think all organisations will become some sort of a software development company in the future. Organisation should look to the resources based view of the firm to understand business strategy and to provide direction to strategy formulation before adopting the open web (Andreu and Ciborra, 1996).

References

Andreu, R., and Ciborra, C. (1996). Organisational learning and core capabilities development: the role of IT. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 5(2), 111-127.