Enterprise Requirements Come From Hollywood

October 24, 2007 By BobGourley

flexible_display_rollout

Most visionary customers in today’s enterprises know what they want. They want hot technology like they see in the movies or on “24.” They want to be served by their IT departments the way Jack Bauer is served by his IT department.

I’m not complaining about that. I like cool stuff too. And actually it makes my job easier since now I have a good way to figure out what customers really want. All I have to do is watch the hottest shows and see the IT imagined in Hollywood and that is what enterprise customers will be asking for.

I think the world’s R&D labs are also watching the movies. Here is an example: in about a month Sony will be offering for sale the world’s first OLED (organic light emitting diode) TV. Samsung and Seiko Epson have models that are following close after that.

These OLED’s will offer bright, smooth, crisp images on screens that take less power, generate less heat and offer far more vivid pictures with no backlighting. Additionally, and this is the Hollywood part, they can be made flexible. So, like in the Harry Potter movies, where Harry’s favorite paper (The Daily Prophet) shows full motion video on something as thin as paper), soon we will be able to carry around a paper thin screen and have it loaded with whatever data the grid can provide. Thanks Hollywood for that one.

The first models will not have this paper-like bendability. But researchers are already working on that. See Sony’s press release for more info.

This is just one example of Hollywood driving requirements which drives R&D. Another I’ve personally seen is the TouchTable from Applied Minds. I guess you could also say that Jeff Han’s perceptive pixel wall is the same way. Both were influenced significantly by the customer demands coming out of Minority Report.
More later.

For more see:
Sony XEL-1 11-Inch OLED Digital TV