Almost all development systems available today require some significant level of programming. Thus an organization that needs a particular system must either hire programmers directly or buy from a company that has hired programmers.
Software solutions range along a smooth curve from narrow point solutions (eg, a job estimation tool) to robust enterprise-wide solutions (eg, ERP systems) and beyond.
QBOS allows non-programmer knowledge workers to create tools and systems far beyond point solutions and well into the enterprise-wide and beyond solution area. All professions from BPO consultants and business analysts to accountants and legal firms are counted among the knowledge workers that are being so strongly empowered by the QBOS platform to create their own solutions directly into their clients’ operating space.
To date, software companies had to compete only against other software companies. The QBOS platform is changing that by turning anyone in the world with domain expertise or knowledge of how they want their own business to run into a competitor against the software industry. QBOS enables the user of the software to be its creator as well.
Point solution and then broader scope solution companies need to adjust to avoid becoming non-competitive under the changes non-programmer development platforms are bringing about. And the effects of such a source transition are both fundamental and far-reaching. Consider just this one effect: how can IP protections stand up against many points sources creating the tools they need for their own use? Even class-action suits should find traction hard to gain in an environment where no two versions of the user-created tools will be the same even while providing the same function -- and therefore each one would have to be examined separately. I’m not saying IP protection models cannot evolve with the technology – I’m just saying I don’t know how they could evolve to continue to be truly protective in the scenario describe.
But with the loss of traditional software development and consulting companies, a far greater number of new companies will spring up -- companies that emphasis the business analysis needs of their clients over pure software development. Many of these will be the software consulting companies of today, having successfully made the transition. But for those looking for new business opportunities in the information management industry, be aware of this transition and design you business model to take advantage of it – there are great rent models to take advantage of herein.
Today, we think in terms of consulting firms and software companies; and the partnerships they must form to work in a world where a knowledge worker’s approved advice and ideas must still take a months or years-long, expensive and often risky path through IT workers before being put into practice. This is the paradigm we are used to. And it also often inhibits the purchasing process from the client’s side as the client must be convinced that the risk is supportable.
With QBOS, consulting firms can produce their own solutions directly out of the heads of their knowledge workers and directly into the hands of their clients, eliminating tremendous amounts of risk for the client along the way while gaining valuable client loyalty. And every solution will reflect the client’s unique needs.
With QBOS, many more consulting businesses will be able to launch that could not have done so before because of the costly IT barrier that would have stood between their advice to clients and the clients’ ability to enact that advice.
QBOS will enable the knowledge workers of the world.
Say goodbye to the software industry that defined the Information Age and hello to what is now truly the Knowledge Age.
Jim Lord, CEO
QBOS, Inc.
Addenda:
- Knowledge Age – when wealth is based upon the ownership of knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge to create or improve goods and services. See: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/495802-time-to-embrace-the-age-of-the-knowledge-worker?ln=en
- There has been much debate and discussion as to when we will see or whether we are already in the Knowledge Age. The reason for such debate is that we have reached what we believe is the proportion of workers who are knowledge workers and yet, political and economic environments have not undergone a similar transformation. I would argue the reason is that knowledge workers are not yet truly empowered. They must wait their turn behind the IT professionals of the Information Age -- a far smaller group that forms a bottleneck to economic change.