Meet the Author
Michael Saylor founded (1989) the publicly traded company MicroStrategy, a leading provider of enterprise software platforms for business intelligence, mobile intelligence, and social intelligence applications. Currently he serves the business as Chairman of the Board, President and CEO.
Saylor earned degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Aeronautic and Astronautic Engineering and in Science, Technology and Society. He has appeared on 60 Minutes and has been profiled in Newsweek, Time, Slate, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.
Book Basics
Mobile computing is not simply a smaller version of early technology; it is a “truly disruptive technology” that will change the way the world works (p.4). Electrical energy was the tipping point technology in the Industrial Revolution; mobile computing will “become the universal computing platform of the Information Revolution, and will be the tipping point technology that allows software to become ubiquitous” (p. 216). As more and more people possess mobile devices, the changes ahead will impact every aspect of daily life, including entertainment, communication, medicine, education, and employment.
As a science historian, Saylor is careful to construct the likely outcomes of mobile technology upon the solid foundation of prior technological advances and realistic appraisal of mobile abilities and projected possibilities. Writing for a broad audience, Saylor conveys an understanding of the future that
- is alarming not alarmist,
- invites entrepreneurship,
- globalizes and glocalizes everything from medical care to education,
- looks more favorable for developing economies than for developed countries, and
- creates new understandings of what is public or private.
So What?
The disruptive nature of the mobile future suggests that those entities currently providing physical products and services must do more than simply update them or relocate them into cyberspace. Saylor argues that such businesses must “re-imagine their products, services, and businesses altogether” (p.14). With this in mind, what will it mean to be “be church” in the mobile future? How can your local congregation begin preparing now?
Michael Saylor. The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything (Vanguard Press, 2012). ISBN: 9781593157202.