Perhaps you’ve heard that Microsoft is pulling the plug on Encarta. Seems the Internet (most specifically, Wikipedia) has made Encarta obsolete – the same way that Encarta made print encyclopedia obsolete in the 90’s. Only difference was that the print versions did well for hundreds of years while Encarta did well less than a tenth of that! This year, all physical Encarta products will be pulled from store shelves and all Encarta web sites will be closed down. You can’t have a more definitive death than that.
When Microsoft was being accused of violating antitrust law, one of Bill Gates’ defenses was that monopolies couldn’t truly exist in the digital realm because there’s always some new technology that can quickly undermine it. He didn’t get many believers at the time, but even while he was speaking Google was on its way to making Gates and Microsoft look like buggy whip makers. The swift rise and swift fall of Encarta is a sign of the digital times.
If the insurance industry is going to fully benefit from information technology, it must recognize that it will be harder and harder to exploit rapidly evolving technologies without relying more heavily on a strong set of suppliers: software companies, outsourcing companies, and the like. A do-it-yourself mentality for insurance company IT departments is not a reasonable option for any carrier who wants to take advantage of the ever-increasing – and ever-changing – advantages of today’s digital technologies.
It’s hard enough to manage and insurance enterprise, without also trying to keep up with changes that even brains like Bill Gates can’t stay on top of.
