Yesterday, the 27th of January 2010, a man who is a bold IT visionary stood up in front of the world’s press in San Francisco (in his somewhat unfashionable turtleneck jumper and blue jeans) and released what he claimed was a “revolutionary new product”.
At the same time on this side of the Atlantic, a slightly less visionary (though just as deeply untrendy) man was also presenting a new product. However, there was a rather fundamental difference between the two (apart from the distinct lack of any sort of press attention here). That product is the latest version of our Content Management System (CMS), and is probably better described as evolutionary rather than revolutionary… and when you think about it, perhaps that description would better suit the iPad too.
Now I’m a big fan of Apple products, I’ve lost count of the number of Macs I’ve owned (I still have a Classic in the loft somewhere) and it’s not just PCs – No. At one point during the never ending upgrade cycles of releases of iPod’s, Nano’s & Shuffles I think I had the complete matching set to go with any occasion. And then, just when they couldn’t possibly squeeze another penny from me, Apple went and released the iPhone. Bang went another few hundred, thanks Steve. The problem this time though, is that I already have an iPad. I have a small one that I can make telephone calls on, and a large one with a proper keyboard that I work on… I’m just not sure there’s a gap between the two – and if there were, is it fair to describe it as “revolutionary?” Let’s compare…
With our new CMS, we’ve taken the existing built-in technologies from our previous one, and then streamlined and improved each of them. In essence, we’ve taken v2.0 and made it a little bigger, better and faster for v3.0. Sure there’s a few new modules (such as the Rollback, Blog and User Management features) but isn’t the iPad just a bigger and faster iPhone? (sans the ability to make telephone calls of course!)
The issue I have though, is that almost every day some company develops a revolutionary product… or at least that’s what they claim. But when does evolution turn into revolution? It’s certainly not on day one. Take the ubiquitous iPod for example, no one could argue that it hasn’t revolutionised the way the music is bought and sold (ask any ex-Woolworths employee). But I remember when the iPod was first launched – there wasn’t anything revolutionary about it at all. In fact other manufacturers were already building smaller and better specified units. No, the revolution wasn’t from the hardware, it came via the software used to support it.
So, if the determining factor in deciding evolution or revolution is how we interact with the supporting software (rather than the actual hardware), is it not fair to say that a CMS which gives non IT personnel the power to manage their websites on a day-to-day basis, is in fact, more revolutionary than the new Apple iPad?
Discuss….
