Peeping into the future to spot patterns is something that I have been doing for quite some time and before I forget, let me first jot down trends that I had seen and which subsequently revealed themselves to others. This is more to reinforce my own personal feel good factor.
First the Internet itself. In 1996 I had quit my career in Database Administration to stake my fortune in the web, internet and what subsequently become known as eBusiness. Despite intense scepticism, I was the sole evangelist for the eBusiness practice of PwC .. a practice that subsequently became synonymous with all technology itself. Today, there is no information technology that is NOT eBusiness enabled.
Within eBusiness, I had predicted the emergence of platform independent, browser based applications : based on the Universal Client. This is something that has become a reality today. I had predicted that corporate ERP applications would be web enabled to move forward into the eCRM space ( to reach out and touch the client) and backward into the eSCM space ( to integrate vendors ). Once again this is a reality today.
Beyond business, I had predicted that web enabled teaching, as pioneered in www.intellitutor.com would become an important channel for selling educational services. This is happening today through sites like growingstars.com
I had predicted the convergence of the cellphone and payment systems through a technology as basic as SMS. This has gone live today as well.
Massively multiplayer online role playing games would emerge as a defining feature of human civilisation and we see the contours of this as well, though not so much in India because of connectivity costs.
Finally I had predicted that bio-technology services would be offshored, much like programming services are today and India will become the hub of "in-silico" back office processing. This is just about to start .. so watch this space.
Where did I go wrong ? I had thought that cable TV would be dominant mode of internet access but thanks to the primitive state of the cable TV business this did not happen. And what killed it ofcourse was the immense success of wireless telephony, both GSM as well as CDMA. Perhaps I was a bit off the mark here. But then I suppose I cannot be right all the time
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