This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Michael Cote. Original Post: Software is eating the world, change or die!, and other business memes Feed Title: Cote's Weblog: Coding, Austin, etc. Feed URL: https://cote.io/feed/ Feed Description: Using Java to get to the ideal state. Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Michael Cote Latest Posts From Cote's Weblog: Coding, Austin, etc.

I’ve been working on a piece for the Pivotal blog exploring what the hell “software eating the world” actually is and means, esp. as it related to that other hallowed mantra of keynotes: “change or die!”

Here’s the intro so far:

Pretty much every macro-level keynote in our industry covers the three horsemen of the digital apocalypse:

1. Software is eating the world!
2. Businesses must change or die!
3. Buy our products/services!

Trust me, as an analyst I would see these three horsemen about once a day. I got to know those horses well and even let them store the occasional turkey in my fridge when they had family over for Thanksgiving. They’re nice, as bringers of apocalypses go.

Few things rankle me more than a business meme I’m forced to hear over and over. I’m left to delight myself with whatever new clip-art the presenter will use. I’ve always been curious to investigate the validity of the horsemen. The third one, of course, is evaluated on a case by case basis, but if you follow the citation chain for the first two, to get lost in a dense forest of leprechauns, if there’s any citations at all.

So, I thought I’d start checking in on these two bedrock ideas more:

1. What does “software is eating the world” really mean, and is it really on a tear like a starved man at a Shoney’s?
2. Are businesses really facing such an existential crisis that they need to dramatically change? Should we expect them to change?

Now if I can just work “third platform” in there, I’ll win bingo! “Bi-modal IT” for triple word score ;>

In putting it together, I’ve currated a few charts, not all of which I’ll be using, but here they are for those of you who like charts:

PCs vs. post-PCs from Gartner

This is good for when you want to go over the foot-print for “computers” and/or show relative market-share between “mobile” and PCs.

Source: Gartner 2012, 2013; 2014 to 2016

Embedded Software, 2009 edition

Back in 2009, the embedded systems market was around €160bn… More recent estimats (from IDC, it seems) put the embedded market at around €1.5 trillion.

Uber’s rumored growth by net revenue

330% CAGR!

Source: “Uber Expands Funding Round as Revenue Growth Accelerates,” Wall Street Journal, Feb 18, 2015.