What the collapse of the newspaper industry can teach IT

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October 01, 2012 6:18 PM

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Meanwhile, whether you see it or not, you can't deny that your workforce is becoming increasingly mobile as smartphones deliver incredible computing power into your employee's pockets and purses. You need to find a way to get your enterprise content to them wherever they are regardless of the device they are on -- and face it, the days of handing out a company Blackberry are over. If you doubt it for a second, take a look at RIM's plunging market share numbers. You need to find ways to support a myriad of platforms and devices and deliver content to your users wherever they happen to be, regardless of the device -- and by the way, you're still responsible for managing these devices.

Finally, we have the social influence, which is hitting home in the enterprise in a variety of ways including internal social networking, external socializing with customers, supplier and partners and of course social media monitoring on the open web on sites like Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter because you don't just have to communicate with your customers wherever they may be -- although that's imperative -- just as importantly, you need to listen to what they are saying about you.

If you want an enterprise software poster child for this entire phenomenon under one roof, look no further than Salesforce.com, which has put together an entire package of social, mobile and cloud solutions. And before you scoff, realize that Salesforce.com has grown to be one of the top 5 software companies in the world. It's not some lightweight. It may not be best of class in every category, but it's beginning to check all of the boxes.

And it is growing to understand, what you need to grasp before you end up like the newspaper editors muttering to themselves and wondering how it all got past them. The world is shifting quickly, and it's time react now before you end up like them.

Ron Miller is a freelance technology journalist, blogger, FierceContentManagement editor, and contributing editor at EContent Magazine Read Ron's bio