The Agent-Centric Future of Content Management

To imagine the future of content management, it helps to understand its past and present. Why does content management exist?

Because there is content.

Content is how humans communicate with each other. Documents, images, presentations, audio, and video are all forms of unstructured data created primarily by humans for humans. The fundamental purpose of content management has always been to facilitate the sharing and use of that content efficiently while complying with various business rules, regulations, and laws.

Content management will shift from human-centric to agent-centric architecture. 

Machines are different. Traditionally, machines prefer structured data, information that can be neatly organized into rows and columns, calendars, coordinates, form fields, and database records. That data is managed by systems of record such as ERP, CRM, HCM, SCM, order management, logistics, billing, and more.

Machines have historically been much less capable of dealing with content. Processing unstructured data was difficult and possible only to a limited extent. Content management systems helped, but humans still had to do much of the work. As a result, these systems were designed primarily for humans, with the goal of making human interaction with content as easy as possible.

Human-centric design is embedded in the DNA of content management. Systems use containers such as folders, cases, and projects to organize documents into groups that humans can understand. Hierarchical navigation allows people to move intuitively from one container to another. Viewers and players let them inspect content without opening the native application. Search helps them find what they need. Almost everything about the traditional content management experience has been designed for humans. It was delivering experience akin to paper files while being much more efficient than paper. That has always been the primary value of content management. 

Generative AI changes all of that.

Generative AI gives machines the ability to understand and create content. With the help of an LLM, a machine can "read" a document and understand what it is about in considerable detail. That understanding can be used to find the document, classify it, file it in the right container, extract information from it, compare it with other documents, and perform many of the tasks that previously required humans.

But that raises an interesting question: Why? We are approaching a point where machines can automate entire business processes. If machines are doing most of the processing, why continue designing the systems for humans?

Humans will certainly remain involved in exception handling, escalations, approvals, judgment calls, and other important decisions. But those interactions can be presented by machines in ways that no longer require people to navigate hierarchies, browse folders, or search for files.

What if future content management systems simply stopped building much of that functionality? No containers. No hierarchy. No viewers. Perhaps no traditional user interface at all. Why invest in those constructs if humans are no longer performing any of the mundane tasks they were designed to support?

Future content management systems may prioritize agent experience just as today's systems prioritize user experience. AI agents will have different needs to prioritize. They will need better data pipelines, agent-to-agent interfaces such as A2A, and multilevel memory that allows them to deal with multiple issues simultaneously. 

The notion of metadata could change even more dramatically, perhaps eventually becoming obsolete in its current form. Today's metadata is largely created for humans, with the hope that it also helps machines. Tomorrow's metadata may be created primarily for machines and look completely different. Tokens, embeddings, vectors, extracted entities, relationships, and semantic context can capture far more information than a handful of metadata fields designed to help someone sort files in a folder.

What we call content enrichment today is just the beginning. It will evolve into a much richer representation of business context, capturing relationships, meaning, history, intent, and relevance in ways that traditional metadata schemas cannot.

Some of this may resemble what we often call a "headless architecture", a concept that gained prominence in the early 2010s with headless content repositories and e-commerce platforms. But this goes beyond headless in the traditional sense. Headless typically means exposing functionality through APIs so that third-party applications can provide the interface. What I'm describing is a more fundamental reimagining of software, moving from a human-centric architecture to a machine-centric one.

Humans will still need an experience when their intervention is required. But that experience could look very different.

Instead of navigating documents in a repository, a person might receive an AI-generated summary of the facts from all relevant documents and the recommended next steps. Instead of clicking traditional Approve or Reject buttons, they could interact conversationally. Instead of searching, filtering, and sorting documents, they could ask questions using text or voice. The system would provide answers and insights, with the underlying documents available as evidence when needed rather than serving as the primary interface. 

Today, most content management systems have added an AI assistant to the traditional user experience. Tomorrow, the assistant will be the user experience. The buttons, menus, and ribbons will disappear. There will only be conversations.

These new interactions will extend beyond employees to the people organizations ultimately exist to serve: their customers.

Most workflows today begin with a form, often a cryptic one. Tomorrow, they could begin with a question or request expressed in natural language. The system could resolve ambiguities immediately by asking clarifying questions, eliminating much of the delay and rework that characterize business processes today.

That may sound like a chatbot. It isn't. A chatbot is an interface. I'm talking about an operational content management system using AI agents that can understand content and automate the content-powered business processes.

All of this eventually leads to an even bigger question: Will machine-centric systems ultimately eliminate the need for content itself? After all, machines can communicate more efficiently using structured data. If machines are handling the work, why bother with all that pesky unstructured content?

Because humans are involved. And they always will be.

They are the customers, students, patients, employees, citizens, and constituents these systems ultimately serve. Humans need healthcare, education, financial services, food, clothing, permits, licenses, housing, and countless other products and services. They need to communicate with organizations, and organizations need to communicate with them. Much of that communication will continue to take the form of content.

As long as there are humans, there will be content. And as long as there is content, there will be content management.

My 2013 Predictions Scorecard

What? It’s mid-December already? I barely blinked twice and the year has flashed by. That means it’s time to think about my predictions for the upcoming year. Yes, yes, I’m working on them already. But, as is my custom, I will do the right and honorable thing first and review here publicly how I did on my predictions for 2013. OK, taking a deep breath and here we go:

1. Facebook hits rocky ground

I predicted in January that Facebook would experience a slowdown. The company is of course doing well financially and the stock has recovered. Yet the year has passed without any major uproar about Facebook changing something, which is a sign that innovation has started tapering off. On the privacy front, the NSA became the top villain replacing Facebook. Since Facebook hit the magical mark of 1 billion users back in October 2012, there has not been much talk about user numbers. In fact, most media started reporting that teenagers are no longer hanging out on Facebook anymore since their grandparents befriended them. Things have definitely slowed down at Facebook.

I call this point for me: 1/1

2. Everything will be digital

I’ve predicted that 3D printing will trigger a major boom in CAD drawings and the management of CAD files. Yeah, I said back then that I might be pushing my luck on the timeline and sure enough, this hasn’t happened. Not yet. The 3D printing pioneer Chris Anderson has published a great new book called Makers and has given a bunch of inspiring speeches but the 3D printers are still used mostly to create lame plastic toys, albeit sometimes very creative ones.

This was definitely a miss and the score is now: 1/2

3. The rise of intellectual property management

My prediction was that the CAD boom will stir a debate about intellectual property as the CAD files are easy to pirate. Well, since the CAD boom didn’t happen, this one hasn’t played the way I predicted either and I won’t score a full point here. Yet, intellectual property management has become a huge issue behind managing rich media, particularly in the media and entertainment industry. IP rights management and the business processes related to securing, monitoring, renewing, and enforcing IP rights are a huge topic. Interestingly, Gartner just published a report called Gartner Top Predictions 2014: Plan for a Disruptive, but Constructive Future and the very same 3D-printing related IP security issue has been listed as one of the 10 predictions. Some Gartner analysts apparently read my blog :-)

I think I deserve a half point here.

Score: 1.5/3

4. Internet of iPhone things

The set of Wi-Fi connected gadgets that can be controlled with mobile devices has started growing like crazy. I love, love, love my Nest thermostat which allows me to come home to a warm house after a few days away. I use several WeMo power outlets and my Withings scale uploads my data straight into my Endomondo profile for precise calculation of calories burned. On my Christmas list are a Wi-Fi connected weather station, a WeMo light switch, and a hot tub thermometer (gotta have one of those!!!). I’m still looking for a good Wi-Fi controlled hot tub switch and a sprinkler switch if you know of any. And we are only just getting started.

This is a hit: 2.5/4

5. Mobile market predictions

I predicted that Apple would continue making a killing on margins while Google would keep going after revenue; there would be a price war among Android suppliers and RIM would keep struggling while hanging on to a small group of keyboard loyalists; Microsoft would not make a dent into the market and that would go multi-platform. Most of it happened. iPhone is the high-end status symbol while Android is going after market share. The Android phone vendors are killing each other with Samsung emerging as a big winner of this war. Blackberry is in trouble. Microsoft is still nowhere and if Stephen Elop takes over before the year’s end, we may even see some Microsoft products on iOS.

I’d say this was worth a point: 3.5/5

6. Censorship will succeed

I’ve predicted that after the barrage of government attempts to enact laws regulating the Internet, one of them actually passes. This has not happened but the government got most of what it wanted: tax income and access to everything. The tax income came since Amazon capitulated to California pressure to tax online purchases - a precedence that will likely lead to more taxation on the Internet. The access to everything came courtesy of the NSA that actually already had access to all the data on the Internet worldwide for years but we’ve only now learned about it thanks to the disclosures by Edward Snowden. Knowing that the government is watching will impact what we share on the Internet, which is effectively a form of censorship. Sadly, I score a point.

Score: 4.5/6

7. New wave of computers

I wrote last January that we will start seeing a broad adoption of wearable computers. Well, I might have been a bit too aggressive on my visioneering. Google pre-released the Glass but we can’t talk about a whole lot of adoption. In fact, it got kind of quiet around it for now. Pebble released its watch but as there are no useful apps, the excitement has also cooled off. Perhaps the only wearables that became popular are the fitness bands such as the FitBit or Nike FuelBand. I still believe that the wearable computers are coming but they haven’t made much of a dent yet in 2013. No point for me.

Score: 4.5/7

8. Responsive web design will become the buzz

My prediction was that there will be a lot of buzz about responsive web design. Its promise is to make web experiences look best on any device, no matter the screen size and form-factor. Responsive design has become a significant topic in the customer experience management and the digital marketing space. There has hardly been a conference where several sessions haven’t been dedicated to this subject. But I won’t pretend that this subject has reached the level of buzz of big data or NSA spying. Half a point will have to do.

Score: 5/8

9. Security finally becomes a market

Here, I predicted that customers finally start taking security seriously in the content management context and that convenience will not always win over security. The NSA spying scandal certainly sparked some heavy discussions and security and privacy have become a huge topic. People are waking up to the dire need for security – both at work and at home. The discussion is moving beyond just strong passwords. People understand the need for security and privacy. In fact, in some European countries, they are quite obsessed by it. We may not have all the answers today, but security and privacy are huge.

Score: 6/9

10. IT strikes back

Back in January, when everyone was still claiming that IT is dead and that the line of business managers will be buying their own software in the cloud as they please, I wrote that IT will re-gain power and importance again. After all, someone has to run all those systems, whether on the premises or in the cloud. Did that happen? Oh yes! The number one topic today is the CIO-CMO relationship and the overall sentiment is that the CIO is not only alive but needed more than ever before.

Score: 7/10

Scoring seven out of ten predictions is not quite a Nate Silver quality of clairvoyance but it is not bad. OK, there were a bunch of half points in there, which might suggest that I wasn’t quite right…but close enough. Predictions have to be bold enough to be wrong sometimes. Otherwise, where is the fun in that?

I plan to write my predictions again, and to be wrong sometimes. Stay tuned, I will publish them right after the holidays.

Content Management Predictions for 2013

It’s January 1st and as in previous years, I am writing my predictions for the year ahead. Since I have the habit of reviewing my previous predictions in December, I end up waiting with the new ones until January. That has the advantage that I can read everybody else’s predictions first. But there is also pressure to be at least little different. With that, here we go, here are my Technology Predictions for 2013:

1. Facebook hits rocky grounds
I predict, that Facebook will actually lose active users in 2013 or that the volume of interactions will slow down. Obviously, the adoption of any free social service is based on the fine line between the value received vs. the price we pay. That price is measured in exposure to advertising (annoyance) and privacy loss. Under pressure to generate profits, the social vendors will cross the line. The ads are becoming too annoying, particularly on mobile devices, the privacy concerns and endless terms of use changes are becoming too sneaky, and the marketers are increasingly seeing social media as another channel for spam. That will backfire and the usage will go down in 2013.

2. Everything will be digital
The Razorfish founder Jeff Dachis once famously proclaimed that “everything that can be digital, will be digital”. Well, he was wrong because with the advent of 3D printing, everything will be digital. The blueprints and CAD drawings for any object will become a mainstream content type and allow us to load them into the printer and create (almost) any object. For 2013, I predict a major resurgence of engineering drawings management which has been a niche of enterprise content management for years. In 2013, it will gain importance beyond the traditional sectors like oil & gas and architecture, engineering and construction (AEC). OK, I might be pushing my luck on the timeline here but hey, no point predicting what already happened. Right?

3. The rise of intellectual property management
When CAD drawings enter the mainstream and become valued intellectual property (IP), there will be a new wave of piracy. Because the day will come when instead of buying the latest Rolex, it will be much cheaper to get the blueprints from PirateBay and make it yourself. This will generate a new wave of demand for security and IP management. The need for security is obvious - companies will guard their blueprints from thefts and industrial espionage, The new demand for IP management will enable legitimate licensing and sub-contracting work using CAD drawings and any other types of content assets. By the way, I’m predicting a rise in demand. I’m not so sure we will find a practical solution in 2013.

4. Internet of iPhone things
Mobility has been on my list in some form in previous years and it won’t be missing in 2013 either. There has been a lot of talk about Kevin Ashton’s Internet of things already but in 2013, the main focus of innovation will be on devices and systems that use smartphones as a point of control. In the consumer space, we will see more and more new devices such as the Nest thermostat, the Belkin WeMo switch, or the Lockitron door lock. In the enterprise, we will start using smartphones for similar purposes - to control office and lab equipment, to replace authentication tokens, or to open secure doors.

5. Mobile market predictions
As for the mobile device manufacturers, I predict that Apple will continue to dominate by all metrics except for market share which is perhaps a less important metric anyway. It’s like comparing Porsche with Kia - who cares about their market share? What matters more is revenue, earnings, reliability, and customer satisfaction. Google Android will be the most common mobile OS, to a large extent due to feature phones being replaced with Android based phones even by people who don’t use their capabilities much. There will erupt a brutal price war among the Android device vendors in 2013. RIM will continue facing challenges but it will hang on to their niche - there are enough highly loyal users in love with the keyboard and its business usability of email and calendar. Microsoft will continue struggling as their new devices are too expensive and lag behind in application support. I also predict that Microsoft will be forced to go multi-platform with their software strategy in 2013.

6. Censorship will succeed
Governments around the world, including many US agencies, believe that this “free for all, anything goes Internet” is evil. They have been repeatedly launching attempts to control, regulate or censor the Internet by law. So far, they have only succeeded in places like China while most other attempts have failed so far - just remember the SOPA and PIPA proposals that both failed in 2012 and so did the recent UN Internet conference in Dubai. With so many government initiatives to control at least some aspect of the Internet, however, it is inevitable that some of them will succeed. In 2013, we will see the first laws passed in the US or in the EU that will have a practical impact on how we use the Internet for business by introducing new demands for compliance, legal risk mitigation and data sovereignty. BTW, I am really hoping that I get this one wrong as I am a strong proponent of a free, uncensored, and unregulated Internet.

7. New wave of computers
Forget the smartphones and tablets-  they are so 2012! In 2013, we will see the emergence of a new wave of computers that will look very different. They will have the shapes of watches, glasses, helmets, goggles, jewelry, and various pieces of clothes. Typing will be replaced by dictation and gestures - Apple’s Siri may be going through some growing pains but it shows the way. Similarly, Microsoft Kinect and the Leap Motion Controller show how useful can gestures become. The display will move from a screen to head up display (HUD) which will evolve from fighter jet pilot helmets to glasses (like in the Google Glass project) and eventually to contact lenses. The Kickstarter is full of amazingly creative ideas today - just check out the Pebble watch!

8. Responsive web design will be the buzz
With the proliferation of mobile computers and with the new wave of devices coming, there will be an even greater demand for an optimal viewing experience on every type of device, no matter what the screen size, form factor, display resolution, or its technical capabilities. Unfortunately, it is becoming exceedingly expensive for companies to support multiple versions of their mobile websites and mobile apps to deliver the optimal experience to each device. Responsive web design (RWD) promises a solution for this problem by taking advantage of new concepts such as fluid grid design and flexible images. I predict, that RWD will be quite the buzz in 2013.

9. Security finally becomes a market
Information security is an interesting issue. Every customer I speak to emphasizes how critical security is for their organization. Yet, when I probe deeper, the only security measures I usually find are firewalls, HTTPS and strong passwords - perimeter security measures designed to keep the bad actors out rather than to protect the information. The elephant in the room is the fact that information security is still very much an unsolved problem in most organizations. Particularly when we consider the balance of security and convenience, security is a tough nut to crack. For 2013, I predict that customers will finally start to take security seriously. Security will move from words to actions and customers will begin implementing real security measures to protect their information. That leads to my final prediction for 2013:

10. IT strikes back
Consumerization, mobile devices, and social media have conquered the enterprise IT fortress in the last few years. IT departments have been declared obsolete and users have taken over. Well, that will change in 2013. Enterprises come to realize the security, compliance, legal exposure, and intellectual property risks that the new technologies introduced. The CIOs will be asked to address this issue. The solution will likely manifest itself in more stringent corporate policies, greater control of the devices, and more forceful ways to extend the company’s control over its information. No, I am not predicting the end of any of the new technology trends - they are here to stay. But I am predicting that enterprises will find ways to exert more control over their information. The information belongs to the company and not to the users... and certainly not to the consumer services. The IT departments will be responsible for that.

Well, that’s it. These are my predictions for 2013. I hope that you disagree with some of them - otherwise, I would think I wasn’t trying hard enough ;-) In any case, I plan to review the success of my predictions in December. Until then, I hope you will check out my blog from time to time.

Happy new year!

The Future of Content Management

Last week, I had the privilege to participate in a panel at the new AIIM 2012 Conference in San Francisco. The conference was a smashing success for AIIM, selling out weeks in advance and attracting the who-is-who in the content management industry. My panel was titled the Future of Content Management and my fellow panelists were Roland Benedetti, VP of Products at Nuxeo and Robin Daniels, Head of Enterprise Product Marketing at Box who was standing in for Whitney Tidmarsh Bouck, the head of enterprise business at Box. The session was moderated by Laurence Hart, the CIO of AIIM and Cheryl McKinnon,  AIIM’s CMO - both of whom were an essential element to the success of the session.

The goal of the session was to debate the future of Content Management and sure enough, all of the panelists had an opinion about SoLoMo and also cloud, big data and other trends. Prior to the conference, we stated our views in writing which Laurence has published on his blog. But while everyone kept talking about the of cloud, mobility, and user experience, the selection of panelists alone suggested that a different question was hanging in the air.

The panelists represented a traditional vendor (OpenText), a cloud vendor (Box) and an open source vendor (Nuxeo). The elephant in the room was not the technologies of the future but rather the business models.

As for the technologies, everyone agrees on the key trends. What’s important to mention though is that the given 3-5 year time frame for the future was relatively short. At OpenText, we have roadmaps and business plans that go at least 3 years out - we have a pretty good idea what capabilities we plan to deliver in our software. At the same time, anyone who tries to predict the future 5-10 years out and whose name is not Steve Jobs or Bill Gates is probably just making things up. After all, the smartphone didn’t exist 5 years ago, not to mention the iPad.

But back to the business models. The big question hanging in the air was what will the future bring in terms of a business model. Is every piece of software going to be replaced by the cloud? Will all software go open source? Are the on-premise (aka traditional) software vendors going to even exist a few year from now?

Well, my answer was very simple. I have met many enterprise customers and the one thing that I have learned is that almost no customer has ever managed to adopt a single stack or single vendor environment. The reality is that most enterprises have EVERYTHING. I’m not talking about the small or medium sized companies. I’m talking about enterprises with over $1 bln in revenue. They almost always have a mix of different environments, systems, architectures, and applications. It may be not the most efficient solution or the cleanest architecture, but it is the reality. Most enterprises have a lot of software in different stages of maturity and these past investments have to be leveraged.

My answer to the question which business model would prevail in the next 3-5 years was: all of them. Our customers have to find their place of comfort on the scale between all-in-the-cloud and all-on-premise. Most of them are already somewhere in between. Today, many companies in the US use ADP for their payroll which is a cloud-based offering. Many companies use cloud-based talent management or document sharing offerings today. But most enterprises have many on-premise applications today and they will have many 3-5 years from now. There will be a few extreme cases on each end of that scale but most enterprises will  find their comfort zone somewhere in between.

As for open source vs. well, “closed source”, I think a similar scale exists. I have explained before that customers fall into different categories in their desire to customize and enhance on their own vs deploy out of the box solutions. There are other similar scales, by the way. For example, customers will find their comfort zone on the social media scale between conservative and controlling vs. open and engaging.

The bottom line is that the future is not going to be black or white. The last few decades dominated by the Wintel architecture were an anomaly. It is not likely that we will see such dominant monopoly ever again - and that was just the desktops. No doubts about it, more and more services will move into the cloud because it just makes sense. Some services will only become available through the cloud and rest assured that vendors like OpenText are busy innovating their offerings to take advantage of the cloud. But real customers will have plenty of on-premise software to deal with. In the future of content management, we will deal with customers who each have a very different mix of requirements and the successful vendors will be able to cater to them all.

Many thanks to Laurence and Cheryl for inviting me to participate on this panel. It has been a great fun and AIIM put on an awesome conference. I hope to be there again next year, on March 20-22 in New Orleans!

The Courage to Lead

What else could be the topic of my blog post this week other than paying tribute to Steve Jobs. All the writers have written countless obituaries this week about this great man, his life and his work. Today, I want to write about a particular aspect of Apple’s strategy - Steve Jobs’ strategy - that has really impressed me over the years.

It is the ability to pursue the future by letting go of the past.

When a new technology arrives that is capable of replacing an old one, the typical approach for a technology company is to hedge its bets. Start embracing the new while continuing to support the old. You don’t want to disrupt anyone, you don’t want to leave anyone behind, you want to smoothly transition from one technology to another. That means that for several years and revisions, your product comes with duplicate, redundant technologies to make this smooth transition possible.

Image: Jonathan Mak

For example, many PCs today still ship with a built-in 56kb modem even though hardly anyone knows how to use dial-up to access the Internet anymore. But you have to support the modem in case some grandma in Minnesota still doesn’t have DSL. After all, she might select someone else’s make of PC and that would be bad, right?

That’s not how Apple operates. That’s not how Steve Jobs pursued the future. In his world, when a new technology comes around that it better than the old one, you just go for it. You want to speed up the transition. You want to drag everybody with you, even that grandma in Minnesota. A leader has to lead and Steve Jobs never hesitated to do so.

When the first Macintosh came on the market in 1984, it had a graphical user interface (GUI) instead of the then usual command line interface. There was no command line anymore on the Mac - everything was done though the GUI. Windows 7, in contrast, still has a command line interface available just in case you feel like typing “C:>ipconfig /renew Local Area Connection 2”. OK, the "cmd" program is bit more hidden now than it used to be, but Windows has opted for a long smooth transition from DOS. Apple just went for it.

The Mac also came equipped with the relatively new 3 and ½ inch diskette drive and no longer with the then much more common 5 and ¼ inch drive. The 3 ½ “ diskettes were far superior to the “floppy disks” but PCs would be shipping for another decade with dual drives for both 3 ½“ and 5 ¼“ diskettes. Again, most PC makers opted for a smooth transition while Apple just went for it.

Shortly after that, Steve Jobs was famously ousted from Apple and not many bold moves happened until he came back. In the mean time, he became a billionaire by taking Pixar public and eventually selling it to Disney. Then he also sold NeXT to Apple and in 1997, he was back at the helm.

When the iMac shipped in 1998, it came without a diskette drive. No diskettes, only a CD-ROM drive (later a DVD drive) and a USB slot. That was bold and controversial back then. How are people supposed to exchange files without diskettes? Using the network or a flash memory wasn’t the way people usually did it back in 1998. For many more years after, that PCs used to come with a diskette drive and most people had a box of diskettes next to their PC (if you are over 30, you still have that box somewhere in the attic, just admit it).

In 2001, the iPod was launched with some amazingly bold limitations. It would only play files in the MP3 format (and in the Apple Lossless format which I am a big fan of). Remember, back in 2001, there was a plethora of audio formats used to play music including Microsoft’s WAV, Real Audio format (.RA), Sun’s AU format and others. But Apple said, forget it, we go with MP3 which was popularized by Napster and we all followed. Most of the other formats are disappearing today.

The other famous format bet that Apple made, is the bet against Flash on mobile devices. We are still not quite sure how this one ends up but the history shows that Apple usually gets its way.

Talking about mobile devices, I have to mention the iPad. When it first launched in 2010, it drew plenty of skepticism for coming only with a wireless Internet connection. No diskettes, no CDs, no DVDs, no USB slot...heck, not even a SD card slot. Many of us are still moaning that we want at least a SD card slot but we are happily buying our iPads anyway.

My final example is the Apple TV 2. When it was released in September 2010, Apple decided that the old way of hoarding content in your home library is no longer sustainable as the HD movies are too big. And so they shipped the new Apple TV without a drive for storing movies. Instead, renting is the way to go - the only way to go. Last week, Apple announced their iCloud service, and so I suspect that a cloud-only music player might be coming soon and we will stop hoarding music too.

From a vendor point of view, all these moves were incredibly courageous and for most vendors they would be considered huge gambles, well beyond the comfort level. Yet they all follow the principle that Apple and Steve Jobs embodied for decades - decide what’s best for your customers and have the courage to deliver it. Lead, don’t ask for directions! Even if it takes courage to lead.

To pursue the future, it is good to let go of the past.

Stay foolish.