I was just about to write the obituary for the Internet in particular and
technology in general when suddenly a front-page headline in The Economic Times
that was lying on the table, grabbed my attention. "Smart Cards could have
stopped terrorists". The Parliament House in New Delhi was attacked by
terrorists the previous day and there had been a gunfight in the Parliament
House compound, killing at least 12 people. It seems the terrorists had managed
to enter the Parliament House compound under false identity using deceptive
uniforms and a white Ambassador car that looked like an official car. To the
guards on duty, it must have looked like just another official car entering the
compound.
So why didn’t we have the smart cards? Who needs technology anyway?–we
thought. We had smart guards instead! Of course the smart guards fought with the
terrorists and killed them all –but some of them lost their own precious lives
in the process. The news item said that a contact-less radio frequency smart
card is a possible solution.
A static approach
Our approach towards technology has been typically bureaucratic. We look at
anything ‘wireless’ with suspicion. We are worried that the bad guys will
misuse every new technology that is opened up. We opened up some technologies a
few years ago with great fanfare and we were so happy with our liberal policies
that we stopped at that point in time to appreciate our own decisions and never
looked forward to the new technologies that kept developing. We have been ‘protecting’
our national interests by keeping the consumers away from new technologies like
wireless networking and voice over IP. By the time we make up our mind about
something, the world develops ten more products with new emerging technologies.
The Internet has succumbed to the same attitude. When the Internet and IT was
hot in 1998, we thought it would change the whole world. We talked about
connecting the whole country, Jhumri-tallaiya to New Delhi and all, with the
Internet link. We made e-governance the buzz-word. We thought the Indian IT
industry would rule the whole world one day! Then came the fall as stocks
tumbled on the Nasdaq. Corporate IT budgets shrank, plans for software parks
remained on paper. Pipes, which were supposed to be filled up with optical
fiber, were left alone in the ditches, which were so enthusiastically dug up.
Who needs technology any way? - we said.
The going gets tough
Some clients postponed the decisions to build great portals. Some of the
clients downsized my contracts. Ah! It feels so nice to be downsized; you feel
you are making a positive contribution to the economy by getting downsized.
People who were in the process of assigning big web development contracts to
high-flying web design companies rather than engaging a one man team like me,
came back with decisions to build small websites for the time being.
There is a worldwide slow-down, everyone said. Some made it an excuse to
withdraw into the shell. Internet is useless; technology has no future –became
the new topics of discussion. No one can profit from the Internet, and anyone
who thought otherwise is a fool, they proclaimed. Time and again I have stressed
the importance of Internet as a powerful medium of communication through this
column. Clients who had realized this importance stuck to their policies and
kept using the Internet and Intranets to their benefit. If you were running a
company or managing a group of people who needed reliable technology to do their
work, the Internet hype was nothing more than a distraction. Charlie Feld, who
has served as CIO at Frito-Lay, Burlington Northern, Delta Airlines, and now
First Data Resources, says - "When everybody was running at the Internet
like a moth to a flame, they were wrong, and when everybody’s running away
from it now, they’re wrong too."
Changing scenarios
Then came the terrorist attack on America–the WTC tragedy, and the Anthrax
attacks. Internet is now all the more important than it ever was. The importance
of distributed data back up and data security must now be reconsidered. The
importance of teleworking rather than concentrating all your key manpower in one
vulnerable tower must now be studied. There was a lot of hype about the Internet
technology but also a huge amount of innovation came out during that period.
Whether you like it or not, the Internet and the new technologies which
developed out of the feverish activity of that period are transforming the way
your company deals with customers, employees, and suppliers. In fact, now is the
time to be thinking positively about harnessing the Internet and other new
technologies to keep your business competitive and ride over the demons of
global slow-down. Companies with the right strategies can do that with the help
of these technologies.
Another technology that developed fast during the high tech boom is
Biometrics. Biometrics has finally arrived as a viable identification technology
for various applications. Over the past few years, the price of the computers
and chip technology has decreased dramatically. This has brought us to the point
where biometrics systems are a cost-effective solution for many identification
applications. Biometric Identification Systems are based on many types of inputs
like Face geometry, Fingerprint, Palm and Finger geometry, Iris/Retina etc. With
globalization of business and parallel globalization of terror, Identification
Technologies have acquired prime importance.
That headline in The Economic Times is still staring at me. Smart cards could
have certainly saved precious lives.