February 13, 2006 (Computerworld) --
We are living in a time when, more than ever before, technology and its impact on society are increasingly disruptive. Never before have we had so much technology-driven change happen so rapidly, with the effect being felt right away instead of over generations or centuries. In only a few short years, for example, wireless technology has unplugged the telephone and moved person-to-person communications from the home and office to anywhere at anytime. What used to be a stationary device for private, place-based communications has morphed into a social companion and traveling remote control, allowing us to make instant contact with others, effortlessly capture and push a variety of media, and entertain ourselves on the fly. In the blink of an eye, we have become untethered both from fixed places and from generations-old social patterns separating work and play. Changes in technology are bringing about other new social behaviors. If you still find yourself frustrated with people talking on their cell phones in the movie theater, you had better get ready for multiple shocks as the "age of disruption" continues to unfold. Here are some other examples of disruptive trends on their way. The consumer turned creator. With Internet-supported, peer-to-peer technologies, we now can share all forms of information and media, slicing and dicing it to meet our own particular interests and needs. We don't have to buy a whole music CD anymore, or an entire newspaper or magazine. Rather, we can carve them up, rehash them and share them with the world in an entirely different format altogether, editorializing all the way. Not only can we put our own special twist on others' products, but we can create things entirely our own and broadcast them universally. Blogging, podcasting and videocasting are just the primitive beginnings of what will soon become high-quality productions made by you and me. Enter the era of "Radio Me" and "Me TV." After generations of being fed our news and information from media giants and advertisers, with letters to the editor our only recourse to respond, we are now being encouraged to interact in real time with the source and other consumers. Technology has emboldened us to think that our opinions matter and given us permission to become the source itself. Media and advertising (not to mention democracy) will never be the same. The free market is about to be set free, at last. The movement called open-source, or the ability to access and change software source code freely, is going mainstream. That means that anyone with the will and the skills to alter or improve upon existing software products can do so as long as
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IDG survey says...that while migration to Windows Vista looms inevitable, the road is fraught with challenges from application compatibility to integration issues to upgrade costs. Fortunately one company is stepping up with solutions and services to help manage Vista in a mixed environment and to automate key aspects of that management chore. 
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