The post-PC world is not heralded by the iPad, regardless of what Steve Jobs says. You need a PC to use the thing!
When I hear ‘Post-PC World’, I think people are really talking about a few trends:
- Computing power is very rarely a limiting factor for function these days
- Hardware is getting smaller and cheaper
- Software is a more important frontier
I think that this insurance technology blog, gets the trend right, but screws up the attribution. For instance, this sentence doesn’t make sense:
There will be no patience for slow software, no perseverance for software that isn’t easy to use and an expectation that they can interact with the insurer in a way that works for them.
Rubbish. People have always hated crappy software. What’s changed is that there is much more supply of excellent software.
Like most economics, this is not about demand. It’s about supply.
To me, the main effect that computing trends are going to have on the insurance industry is to reduce costs and so reduce premiums. But the slow grind of process improvements are only newsworthy over large timescales.
People want game changers!
I am reminded of SRW’s response to Cowen’s TGS:
I think that Cowen is lamenting a scarcity of breathtaking [technological] resets… Electricity helped make bread cheaper. But I don’t think cheap bread impresses Cowen as much as the fact that, post-electricity, humans colonized the night and Presidents colonized living rooms.
Indeed.
Not Unreasonable 