Editor's Blog: Is software's future now behind it?

The industry is short on big ideas - at least for now

The future of software is a subject we've been paying a lot of attention to on silicon.com recently.

The CIO Jury took a long hard look at software before ending up with a split decision as to whether the cloud was the future of enterprise software. It was also the subject of our third CIO Series event last week, where a group of the UK's top CIOs sat down to discuss one of the big issues facing IT.

There's been a huge amount of coverage of the cloud in particular in recent months - even reaching the rarefied heights of the evening TV news programmes. But increasingly I'm wondering whether the interest in the cloud reflects a deeper malaise in the enterprise software space.

Instead of arguing over the merits of various technologies much of the discussion around enterprise software is now based around the delivery method. It's an important conversation to have but to me it's a bit like giving up worrying about what the software does and debating the colour of the box it comes in, instead.

Perhaps the shift in the debate is telling us this: we've had enough innovation for a while and the only thing worth discussing is whether the software is loaded onto your servers or held in some datacentre in the cloud.

When I speak to CIOs many are less interested in the next wave of innovation than in getting the most out of what they have already. Few companies seem to have mastered squeezing all the benefit out of existing software (and even fewer have cracked the ever-painful problem of getting different pieces of enterprise software to play nicely together).

So where does this leave us? Software vendors short on ideas and CIOs reluctant to spend money on new licences until they've digested what they have. Time for everyone to pause and catch their breath perhaps, or simply a sign the next big thing is about to blow away all our conventional expectations again.

I'm sure there are still areas of software where not all the battles have been fought and where there is still a great need for innovation. Search for example is still clearly in its infancy and no doubt there are plenty of other areas where great ideas are still welcome.

Which areas of software do you feel still desperately need innovation? Let me know by posting a reader comment below.

Editor's choice - things you should check out on silicon.com this week:

I'm very pleased to announce we've revamped many of our existing email newsletters to make sure our great content is even easier to access. Even more important we've launched three brand-new newsletters that will help you keep up to date with all the most important news and views in IT services, hardware and software.

The new newsletters start going out this week. If you want to sign up for them, or some of our other existing newsletters, the place to do it is here.

Also - months in the making, the silicon.com 2008 Skills Survey has launched this week. In the coming days there are going to be some fascinating revelations about the state of skills, salaries and the role of women in IT. You can find the first story, on the realities of the skills crisis, here.