There are costs and time consuming aspects of the innovation process, that those who criticize the likes of Apple and MSFT for wasting resources on, forget about. One of these deals with integration and interoperability.

Computer World reports that a recent survey of Australian CIOs found that "more than a quarter of the cost of implementing a new application is spent making it interoperable with existing applications..."

On the one hand, its good that the CIOs of Australia recognize the centrality of integration/interop in development. Too much commentary on technological innovation praises what companies like Apple and MSFT would called half-finished products: those that do not sufficiently go through the development phase, and thus lack key features and functions that consumers call for.

On the other hand, it should not come as a surprise to Australian CIOs that a good or innovative product entails more than just code or architectural design. This is often the pitfall of FOSS technologies (I know I know, those projects are ongoing and have benchmarks, but the general tendancy of FOSS proponents is to call certain FOSS technologies more innovative before they're done to any extent).

Professor Iansiti from Harvard Business School has done some good work on managing these intergration/interop in the innovation cycle.

posted by Noel Le @ 2:52 PM | Markets: Business, Investment & Innovation

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