Wanted: Services Only

As a General Purpose Technology we know Information Technology has a critical role to play in our non-profits, schools, and businesses.

Technology services are critical but 99% of the industry is still stuck in the product mindset. We assume in order to provide our organizations with critical services we need to buy products and for almost the entire history of information technology this assumption would be correct.

Products are great for vendors, especially software products. Software products have huge profit margins and cost almost nothing to duplicate. Vendors are able to sell exact copies to thousands and sometimes millions of customers. This business model created Microsoft, the world's largest software company, and Bill Gates, our world's richest man. If you wanted software services, like email, you had to buy software products.

The Internet has destroyed the software product driven business model, many of us just haven't realized it yet. We never really wanted the products in the first place. We only wanted the services.

Every technology service you can imagine is available at your finger tips right now. Google Apps, Batchbook, Freshbooks, Expensify, Squarespace, Picnik, Salesforce.com, 37signals, Amazon Web Services, The Google Apps Marketplace, Zoho, Dimdim, Box.net, Vimeo ... anything you can think of.

When we're at home we quickly find anything we need on the Internet, but then go back to work and sit through IT meetings discussing the next big product we're going to buy, setup, and support. Turns out buying products is a tough habit to break.