Ecosystems now matter

I know I’m becoming more of an introvert. I now think about things that happened 2 weeks ago and assign meaning to them. Or does that mean, I’m pondering. Hmmm. Well, anyways, that’s the context to my writing about Software 2006 and an observation I have about the software business world today.
Dr. Mark Bregman from Symantec spoke at Software 2006 about a week ago. The topic was, IMHO, lamer than lame. “The dilemma of innovation”. Isn’t that like saying, “the dilemma of living”. Ugh.
However, Dr. Bregman did do a good job of defining an interesting phenomena. Given the level of social interactions and collaboration online, the interaction and communication is now happening between many entities at once. With that, security needs to be protecting us at each level – between PCs and Servers, between documents and email to the server, and then online in these social collaborative environments. In essence, it is the space between people that needs protection because people largely have their PCs, etc secured.
I think there’s something really to that.
With all these different user behavior changes around us, it seems like the ‘traditional’ type of software or solutions vendor being able to do all things at all levels, or build and deliver ‘comprehensive’ solutions is outdated. What’s more important it seems to me, is that there is a value chain or web of providers all interlocked to provide security.
Picking up then on an broader theme: Businesses need to build / develop value webs, where value is built by a number of companies coordinating their individual capabilities to create a whole new business ecosystem. And then the single parts of the environment are less important than the things that bring them all together into a cohesive whole.