CIT company of the Future sells advice - not products
Microsoft will get in trouble, IT-guide Jonas Smedegaard predicts. Shapes of future CIT commerce is emerging in Denmark
by CHRISTIAN MADSBJERG
(Information, february 22nd, 2000, page 6)
Jonas Smedegaard looks like avantgarde of the CIT community in all possible ways. With a shaved head and carrying an arsenal of mobile techno-equipment in a bag, he is traveling between customers all over the world. He doesn't really live anywhere but is always in reach - as he is hooked up on all networks you can possibly imagine. His company "IT-guide dr. Jones" mainly operates in Aarhus and Copenhagen, but he is getting more and more customers in San Francisco Bay area in California. Because to Jonas Smedegaard his physical location doesn't matter, he can work on his projects from anywhere on the globe. Out of breath and a bit restless he sits down and spontaniously outbursts. »I'm so excited about living at this time of world history. I feel like living in flux, not able to imagine what tomorrow will bring. And I feel good about that. I have the feeling, that something big is going on out there in the World«.
Company with no products
It is these things "out there in the World" the "IT-guide" has come to tell Information about. Before it is possible to interrupt, Jonas Smedegaard begins talking about his own company: »What is happening now is, that it has become possible to run a business based only on processes. Until now one could only make money on products. But the era of the products is coming to an end as I see it, because they are simply not that flexible. Seeing CIT as a bunch of products is missing the whole point. CIT is basically about the processes of millions of people cooperating on creating the tools called computers and Internet.« Jonas Smedegaard speaks rapidly about the changes he sees facing us. The fact of Information Society being about handling information has alot to it - although it has been pointed out so frequently today it seems obvious. But to him it is not only true, it is a radical change in the way we work and think. »Handling information means handling the chaos emerging, when people from all over the World meet to share knowledge, skills and research. It is the biggest challenge of all to get an understanding of all the mess, putting it together«, he says.
More and more mess
»Obviously there is a need of guidance in the flux exposing society. This is why I call myself "IT-Guide" [CIT guide] and not programmer or consultant. And there is a need for a lot of my kind in the time to come, because we will have more and more mess to deal with than we can grasp.«
From the beginning Jonas Smedegaard have been part of the community surrounding the so-called Open Source fenomenon. Open Source is a rupture with the habit of patenting in the software market, by actively keeping the sources of software open for improvement, comments and changes.
»One of the movements I understand is this 'open source'. And to me that fenomenon contains an explosive potential regarding the way the CIT world is organized. 'Open Source' challenges the very principle of the money-flows surrounding Internet,« says Jonas Smedegaard.
»Where big companies like Microsoft the last 20 years have defined our needs from above, now is a possibility for all of us in working the field to work closely with users designing programs and network solutions fitting their own needs. This means spending the money on knitting together open and gratis software packages - that is freely accessible from the net by everybody - in a clever way. The priciple is then that we who are working with these things, give away our work to each other, and then we all can enjoy the joint effort.«
- But where does the money come from?
»We call it Gift Economy. But that doesn't mean that we work for free. What we do is defining all finished work as gratis to everybody. But the time spent creating customized solutions cost money. That is, if you need something for your business, I can put together a solution from some of all the gratis komponents freely accessible off the net. If they can do it themselves then fine by me. But not averybody can do that. And That is where the money enters into the picture.«
- But what if the companies that you work for wants to patent what they pay you to make?
»It is a fixed principle that what I create for others have to be freely accessible to anybody. I myself indulge in the work of others. This way I can add to the bowl of free software. Giving away my finished work as a gift is the very concept of existence for my company.
- But isn't this whole Open Source fenomenon still on a geek level. I myself write using a patented word processor, for example?
»Development has just begun. What is happening in the Open Source field at the moment is fine-tuning what is called the User Interfaces. We are in the process of making nice looking software which is truly on the same level as Word and Windows - and whatever it is all called. And when ready, big monopolies can expect to feel the pain economically. Because what we do here is both better and free,« says Jonas Smedegaard.
This article is a translation of a printed article in the danish newspaper Information, Tuesday February 22nd, 2000. The original (danish) article is here: http://www.information.dk/Indgang/VisArkiv.dna?pArtNo=20000221s06a04 .