Business and enterprise software, and other applications that help a business run

As is often true, hardware will take the lead toward a new business software paradigm, though there are some bottlenecks. As computer hardware shrinks, and become more portable, it is becoming easier to transact business from everywhere. Laptop (and smaller) computers are a part of this, but so are cell phones and MP3 players. These ever-smaller, ever more powerful devices are already changing the way that we work and play.

Think back (if you are old enough) to a time before the portable computer and the cell phone. We did business very differently then. There were devices called phone booths, and we used them. Computing was done in the office, if it was done at all by the people that did your job. If you wanted to send a letter, it got typed, stamped and sent via snail-mail.

This was true a mere 20 years ago! Now we have cell phones that also play music, show video, send and receive email, keep us in touch with our social networking sites, and so much more. There are MP3 players that will do all of that except the phone calls. And with services like Skype, a laptop computer with a wireless card can do it all, almost anywhere on Earth.

These devices allow us to take our office with us. It it were not for those pesky input / output devices, we could be completely mobile, with everything we need to do, with a device we could put in our pocket. What we need are keyboards and monitors that fold, or roll up, or maybe what we need are some completely different devices! That what we will talk about tomorrow; new devices will lead to the business software of the future.