Innovation as a Service

Innovation is a continuum. You have to think about how the world is evolving and transforming. Are you part of the continuum? 

Marc Benioff 

Continuum: A continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct.

In 2007, two companies made a choice to upgrade their Exchange 2003 environments. One company decided to implement Exchange 2007, the other company implemented the Premier Edition of Google Apps (as Google Apps for Business was previously called). At that time these two companies both chose a path, a continuum. At the time, these two decisions would not be perceptibly different from each other to most people. However, look at these two environments again today and the extremes are indeed quite distinct. Why? Because one firm was leveraging Innovation as a Service and the other was leveraging a software product (hosted or on-premises), innovation not included.

Exchange 2007 is the same in 2012 as it was in 2007. The iPhone launched in 2007, Android a year later. These past 5 years have been some of the most innovative years in the history of technology. Yet the firm on the Exchange continuum did not receive innovative new messaging or collaboration capabilities as a result. Still today, almost a full 6 years after the launch of the iPhone, you won't find Outlook on any iPhones or iPads.

How many updates has Google Apps for Business received since 2007? Hundreds and even dozens of entirely new Apps! Innovation was included with the continuum the second business followed. What can they do with their iPhones and iPads? Video chat with up to 9 other people, screen share, access and edit all their documents with Google Drive, search 25 GB of email in seconds, leverage Gmail for iOS, remote wipe their devices and much, much more.   

Today, there are two more organizations considering the continuum they want to join. They can choose a stagnate server product or they can choose Apps with Innovation included. What about Office 365? That's cloud computing, right? Nope. It's Software as a Service and, while better than hosting the stagnant software product yourself, is still just a hosted 2010 Exchange Server instance - innovation not included.