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COVID-19 Is Disrupting Tech Like Tech Never Has.
11 Mar, 2020
5 min read
Readers, this is my first foray into writing a weekly piece about all things tech. Well not all things, but the things that impact businesses that we care about at Biztech. I am still working on streamlining what goes into this but I will try to keep it as fun, and as quick as possible. Thank you for giving me a few minutes of your day; I promise to add value to it.
Let’s get into it!
First up, and today, the only thing the news is about: Coronavirus tech update.
It is impacting tech in a big way. Big tech companies, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon, are encouraging and in certain areas enforcing working from home. Microsoft and Google are giving office suite products for free for a few months to make it easier for everyone using their products while working from home.
These companies are also canceling their major and minor conferences like Google Cloud Next, Google I/O, Microsoft’s MVP Summit and Build conference, Facebook F8 as well as work related travel, thus moving everything online. Some of the companies have even moved job interviews online. Product launches are rumored to be slower, less in number and there is an overall sense of pausing here.
The two major stores for mobile applications, App Store and Play Store, are screening the apps regarding Coronavirus signs and symptoms are very common and can be easily infected with touch not accepting ones that are from anyone other than official health organizations and the government. This helps keep misinformation and panic in control. Well, brownie points for trying anyway.
You’ve got the facts and dates across the internet. So I don’t want to take up space by repeating those.
There are things to say that not many people are saying here. Is this break in the very fast, too fast, world of tech a good thing? I think so. Silicon Valley’s idea of ‘move fast and break things’ breaks too many things. Tech needs to pace itself. A few months of slow updates and work might just be good for it. Tech needs to be more conscious about what it keeps producing. Iterative updates are well, iterative, and the industry requires some fresh thinking.
So you push out one less messaging service or do it a month later than you thought. People will still be able to communicate. But you can take this time to think about whether you really want to add one more messaging service or not. If you know who I am talking about here, then you probably agree with me.
In another update, Salesforce turned 21! Welcome to adulthood! Since their acquisition of Tableau last year, they have new offices in Seattle, which has been hit squarely in the face by the novel coronavirus, so the company rang in their birthday by closing the office and announcing a work from home order. That applies to their California offices as well.
Adobe Summit and Magento Imagine conferences that are set to happen at the end of this month, are also not happening in person anymore but will happen online. So attendees can sit in the protected environment of their home without having to be in a public space with thousands of people in Las Vegas.
That’s all for now! Sanitize your hands after you touch your phone/computer to read this story.
