Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Bernardo de Albergaria and Tommy Ahlers of Citrix Online (Part 6)

SM: Where do you see the evolution? I think these functions, the file sharing function and the collaborative function and the integration, these three pieces we’ve talked about, I think it’s going to take some time for enterprises to fully adapt to this, especially on the integration function. I think it’s going to take substantial time for there to be massive roll out in the large enterprises especially. Probably in three years’ time, we will see a deeper penetration into the enterprise customer base.

TA: You might be right on enterprise, but the things you are talking about here are not to the enterprise but to the teams. It’s built on the teams; it starts with the teams. Not individuals, but teams, they decide to use GoToMeeting, to use Podio and then to pay for it. That’s why it’s starting now. That globally will continue.

SM: That’s a good point. It’s a departmental level purchase. It doesn’t go through the large IT purchase cycle.

TA: Exactly. They are starting to realize the value. Those are the conversations we’re having already. But it doesn’t happen overnight. At some point in time – and I think you’re talking closer to 18 months than three years – then they will at last make the decision to say, “We are ready to fully embrace this way of working.

SM: In terms of full deployment, it will take about three years, right?

TA: Yes.

SM: We’ve seen enough cycles of how long it takes for a particular style of technology to get its grip in the market. From where we are on this one, it’s still relatively early.

TA: I think you are right, but the big wave of deployment will start sooner, I believe.

SM: What do you see five years to seven years out? If you really push the envelope, where do you see the next leap forward?

BdA: I think one of the big things we’ll see within five years is that – we’re talking about a lot of documents – but documents are made for a world where we have to print them and put them into binders or maybe sometimes sign them, like legal documents. But documents, in the form they are today, might become irrelevant over time. They may take a different form. If you want to track what that new form looks like, we think we have one version of that on Podio. It’s still an early version, but a version that allows people to do it inside apps and collect data into Podio. That’s one major trend that I’m seeing on the five-year horizon, the replacement of documents.

SM: That’s an interesting observation. I think in that vein, video takes a much bigger place, right? The more we do video conferencing, and the more we record the video conferences and use those for documentation purposes, that becomes a much bigger media format.

BdA: The way to extract content and collaborate around them is incredibly important. There’s a lot of content generated during a conference, like this one. It’s usually not easily captured. Or, even if you record it, it’s not easily digestible. So, let’s say we talk for half an hour, one hour, only pieces of content are relevant to some people over there. We need to figure out – I think it’s very important, and it’s one of those things that we’re all working on and trying to figure it out. So, yes, as Tommy talked about, how we make it easy to distribute content and consume it in a conceptual way can be one of those next frontiers.

SM: OK. Well, thank you, Bernardo. Thank you, Tommy. I’ve enjoyed our conversation.

BdA: Thank you so much.

TA: Thanks a lot for your time.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Bernardo de Albergaria and Tommy Ahlers of Citrix Online
1 2 3 4 5 6