The bad old days of consumer tech

Not a day passes without some harsh story about Facebook and data protection. How un-innovative Apple has become. Why Amazon should be broken up. Why Google should be regulated.

And I ask do these folks not remember the days when consumer only got technology dregs? It was not that long ago. Elite government agencies got the best in satellite, computing and other support. Then came corporations. Consumers, if they were lucky, came much later in the technology lifecycle.

Today, consumer tech leads enterprise tech in capability and design. Enterprise software repeatedly turns to consumer tech for innovation. Mobility, multi-tenancy, cloud infrastructure, machine learning - the leadership has not come from IBM or SAP. It has come from Apple and Google.

I think of this every time I hear Mark Hurd, co-CEO of Oracle, present in keynotes. He particularly likes to point out that consumer spend on technology has caught up to enterprise spend — annually about $1 trillion each — and is growing faster. Even more dramatically, over 80% of enterprise tech is spent on keeping the lights on, not innovation. In contrast, the consumer is getting almost pure innovation for her dollar.

Enterprise tech vendors — especially ERP/ CRM vendors, their systems integrators and other partners — were set to dominate the technology landscape in the late 90s. They had emerged very strongly from the Y2K crisis, and the launch of the EU’s common currency promised another bonanza. Instead, their share of the market steadily declined over the ensuing two decades. They missed out on the contract manufacturing of smart products, digital advertising, cloud infrastructure and several other trillion-dollar markets. Two decades ago, not many of us had heard of Foxconn which has delivered billions of iPhones, iPads and smart products. Few of us considered Amazon or Alibaba as tech vendors. Few of us would have speculated that Apple, near dead, or Google, not born yet, would have many times Oracle or SAP’s annual revenue.

To me, that has worked out better for consumers. Enterprise vendors have delivered nowhere near the price/ performance improvements or innovation that consumer tech has seen. It should be no wonder then that the tech the consumer gets at home on Sunday night or in her car is so much better than what she finds at work on Monday morning.

So, let's ask for a vote - how many consumers would give up the advertiser funded or subscription models and sign up for enterprise licenses and audits? So, we can criticize consumer tech for data privacy issues, but honestly, it is a tradeoff consumers have been willing to make. Us smart folks making snide comments or worse forcing GDPR type regulations are not doing them many favors.

Talking about regulators, let's look at their track record with tech. They have not fixed spam email and phishing, robocalls with IRS or Microsoft scams, misleading or fraudulent TV ads. Honestly, those cause way more damage to consumers. Regulators have given immunity to telcos after they violate our privacy rights - why do we think they will do better with consumer tech? GDPR to me is "feel good" legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley was post-Enron. Lot of noise and expense but little in results.

Be careful what you clamor for. You may bring about the bad new days of consumer tech. And that is not what tens of millions of consumers, including me, want. Respect our ability to make choices.