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Monday, April 16, 2007

Tech trends for 2007

What? The year's over already? As my favorite Matrix actor would say it, "Whoa!" Time again for our annual trend reports!

The good news is that 2007 looks like it will be such a good year for entrepreneurs, and I'm not talking about the release of Windows Vista either. I say this because if you search the web today, you'll most likely find a nifty tool not only for your personal use but also for your business. The catchword for 2007 therefore could very well be "Better tools on the Web, for free (or at lower cost)!"

Trend #1: Collaboration through Web and IM will become even more popular.

More than ever, we will be getting better and cheaper computer hardware from the Internet and get cheaper Internet connections besides. The World Wide Web (aka "the Web") can provide us with even more exciting entertainment as well as faster and more productive ways to gather information and to get more work-real work-done. All this, thanks to Web 2.0, a revitalized, dynamic platform that provides even better collaboration tools.

The most outstanding of these new tools are Google Docs & Spreadsheets for word processing and spreadsheet calculations, Basecamp for project management, and Gliffy for flowcharting and diagramming. These tools all run from the Web but they behave like traditional software, performing such mundane information-processing tasks as drag-and-drop and copy pasting. All you need to put these tools to work is an Internet connection and a browser like FireFox. There's absolutely no need to download and install anything. In addition, Google recently purchased other collaborative tools from independent developers that might be made available to users soon-most probably also for free!

Recent advances in real-time instant messaging (IM) will also definitely greatly enhance collaboration over the Internet. Now fast becoming standard fare in IMs is voice over IP (VoIP), which is geek-speak for "allowing us to make and receive telephone calls through an Internet connection." The most popular IM tools are Yahoo Messenger and Skype because they allow for both voice conferencing and video conferencing. These handy, easy-to-use IM tools are excellent free alternatives to the expensive traditional video-conferencing services.

Trend #2: Here comes crowdsourcing.

The growth of the Web also makes possible a new service capability: crowdsourcing. This feature is different from outsourcing, which is the use of experts outside the company to provide products and services. In crowdsourcing, the company collaborates with volunteers and amateurs to create products and solve problems for the company. In a typical crowdsourcing project, a company can post the project on its website and invite interested parties to propose, bid, or work on the project either for free or for cash incentives.

Crowdsourcing has three advantages for entrepreneurs. First, the more people working on a problem, the more chances that they can get a better solution within a shorter time. Second, crowdsourcing is mediated by the Internet, which is a largely free medium. And third, crowdsourcing can draw volunteers and enthusiasts who often work for much lower cash incentives than the usual outsourcers. It is a threat to big companies, of course, but for entrepreneurs, it opens up a lot of previously unavailable opportunities.

Trend #3: Even better open-source software will become available.

Crowdsourcing is actually riding on the coattails of the Open Source Software (OSS) movement, which draws on crowd power and the internet to collaboratively build inexpensive software. The result is software that is more reliable, more secure, and more customizable than proprietary products like those produced by Microsoft. Small-scale entrepreneurs with tight IT budgets should look into OSS as an alternative.

How reliable is OSS? Just take a look at the most popular OSS software programs, FireFox and Thunderbird. The web browser FireFox is better at blocking unwanted ads and viruses compared to Internet Explorer. On the other hand, the email program Thunderbird offers better spam filtering and more security than Microsoft Outlook Express. Both FireFox and Thunderbird were created by the Mozilla Foundation which is backed by an active open source community that can post patches to bugs and virus threats in less than a day.

Last year, I predicted that Linux would enjoy increasing use as a cheap alternative to Windows. That prediction is now coming to pass, thanks to the development and introduction of Ubuntu Linux, which is very easy to install and is compatible with more hardware. In fact, the computers in our office-including laptops-run on Ubuntu, making them virtually free from viruses and hardware crashes. And by the way, I am writing this column with OpenOffice, a free and open source word processor.

Trend #4: E-commerce will still be hobbled by high-cost online payment facilities.

Entrepreneurs who wish to go online in the Philippines still have to contend with a major obstacle: collecting payments for goods and services when they are not paid in cash upon delivery. As predicted last year, the online payment facility PayPal has become available in the Philippines. Its use remains very limited, though, and online stores still only have G-Cash and Smart Padala as viable alternatives for getting paid online. It's true that PayPlus and EasyPay have been set up as local versions of PayPal, but these two charge simply too much. In fact, PayPlus and EasyPay are missing the point: their services are actually best suited for small businesses, but their rates are too high to attract the small businesses.

Small-scale and medium-scale businesses simply can't afford those rates. And PayPlus and EasyPay shouldn't really hope to be servicing big businesses. After all, those businesses are already big and will most likely ignore the online market anyway. It is the small businesses that have a crying need for low-cost online payment alternatives and are more ready for technological innovation.


source: Entrepreneur

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the mention of Gliffy. We are very appreciative. If you have any suggestions and/or feedback please drop us a line at our newly revamped website! Thanks,
debik at gliffy dot com