Network utilities lead to zero networks leads to zero (corp) IT

The concept of zero networks in your business is cool: why have a corporate LAN at all?  The concept of Zero IT is much cooler!

Corporate LANs are mostly wired, with permanent old dusty Compaq desktops attached (shudder), but many orgs are now embracing wireless with differing levels of success.  Who the hell wants to rummage around behind and under dusty desks trying to find the one CAT5 that works?  Well, if you’ve seen the state of many wireless installations that is often the best bet.

Why is wireless painful too? Which of the many security schemes are behind used?  What’s the SSID this week, and do you need your RSA token or your corp password?  What if you’re a guest?  Every organisation seems to have different approaches, and different buildings in the same organisation have different approaches too.

Therefore, wired or wireless = painful.

Why isn’t it possible to have a network operate like a utility, like electricity?  Why can’t we be always-on with a wireless technology, with seamless transition from provider to provider as we move across the globe?  Why can’t we use IPv6 on a 4G network with location awareness so that when I’m at home my MacBook Air is connected via Vodafone and 4G to my printer, and then when I arrive at a customer site I’m connected (with me having to do nothing) to the customer’s printer via O2 and 4G?  If it’s such a problem for me to print out on his printer, then I can share the document easily with him.  (Before you ask why he needs to print anything, it’s so I can get his signature on an NDA document).

Now that the telecoms industry is consolidating and providers have mobile phone bandwidth and wired bandwidth, it might be possible.  But as telcos often move at glacier speed, seeking to wring every last dollar out of the long tail, then I wouldn’t get to excited about innovation happening anytime soon from the big boys.

If Zero Networks was possible, then the next logical step is Zero IT – this is the real cloud that everyone talks about but isn’t really possible today because of the network problems (you try working around Europe, and you’ll see what I mean).

If I BYOD (Bring Your Own Desktop), have a facilities team like Regus looking after the office (lighting, printers, coffee machine), I use App Store for client application installs, and my corporate IT is securely managed in the cloud and in datacenters I don’t know or care about: what do I need IT for?

At last, this kind of conversation will be a thing of the past…