It is interesting how the ongoing "consumerization" of IT is continuing to find its way into every day non-technical life. Forget iPads and iPhones creeping into the enterprise, technology is now invading even mainstream marketing. In fact, we now have radio and TV ads making statements that technology should get cheaper, not more expensive. Technology is everywhere. But is the message correct?
Let's examine one claim that technologoy should get cheaper and not more epensive over time. I think this claim confuses and harms businesses who rely on this statement to make false assumptions about IT assets they need and rely upon.
True, technology assets do generally decline in price as more efficient means of production and distribution become available (i.e., cloud) and the cost of technology components becomes more commoditized. Just look at the cost of disk storage over the last 10 years and you can see a pretty straight decline in the cost of hard disk drives. Even now, solid state drives are seeing a slow decline in cost as the demand and production of those assets becomes more mainstream.
The cost of the asset, however, is only one small factor. For consumers, they look at a PC and see only a device that is used for a few years before something newer and shinier comes out and they buy that product, discarding the old one. But what about the cost of managing that asset? Businesses, even small ones, are beginning to realize that while the cost of technology may be decreasing, the cost of effective and current management of technology (more specficially Inforation Technology) is not declining. If anything this variable may rise.
As more threats continue to appear in the form of email, internet, and mobile born malware, IT assets of all kinds are being targeted and becoming vulnerable. More importantly, the data residing on and passing through those assets is what is at risk. The cost of protecting that data is what we are talking about here. The value of this data to cyber criminals and their ilk is rising dramatically.
One of the biggest challenges of cloud and other "consumer ready" technologies making their way into mainstream discussion is the often big distinctions between consumer and business. Yes, the iPhone and iPad are increasingly finding their way into large enterprise environments. One difference, however, is those businesses have no illusions about the important of managing those assets. Eventually, I think, consumers will be learning that lesson too.
