I typically try to avoid doing these prognostication type posts because I believe that (generally speaking) tomorrow is going to be much like today. Sometimes an iPhone comes along and changes the world but even then the change was still relatively gradual for all intents.
I had a demonstration from a technology company that made me think differently about my opinion on CRE Technology. Their actual tool was not that different from everything else on the market and their pitch was the same I had heard too many times to care for. But as I was looking at the actual technology powering their system I realized that if you decoupled a couple of features they actually filled a niche that was open at the moment. It wasn’t something that they had intentionally tried to do but it was a side effect of the technology they were building in.
Essentially the underlying technology had advanced to a point where it made some of their ideas more powerful than would have been expected. If the right person steps in and looks at what they have and listens to some feedback they might have something amazing.
But the broader point is that the world of software (especially mobile and online tools) have evolved so far at this point that the tools themselves are beginning to provide as much or more value as the idea that it is being applied to. The flexibility and capabilities of the tools themselves are blending with these CRE ideas in surprising ways and it is now just a matter of time before someone accidentally invents something that shakes up the industry.
I don’t know where this surprise will come from (probably from where we least expect it like around demand modeling) but it is coming like a freight train. The underlying technology is reaching a degree of power that it can’t help but find the right application.
Something to think about.