There’s always a thousand no’s, coming up with them is easy. The web won’t work because it doesn’t do what the windows apps did, the windows app is harder to use with it’s mouse than the “keyboard shortcuts” of the DOS program, the PC won’t work because it’s expensive and easier to do on paper. The digital picture wasn’t near as good as the printed picture in 1999, no one uses the internet in 2000, who wants to wait on their amazon book to arrive via mail when they can just go to the store. Google is just another search engine in 2002, apple can’t do a phone in 2007 and Facebook and Twitter are a waste of time in 2010.

And most of the time the “no” people are right. Most of the time it doesn’t work, most ideas fail, except when it’s not true. Except when Microsoft had a goal of a computer on every desk and in every home, the no’s were wrong. Except when the internet, which was for geeks only becomes used by everyone, the no’s were wrong. Except when the camera phone takes more pictures in one year than all the pictures taken since that time. Except when Airbnb books more rooms than the largest hotel chains. Except when uber becomes the largest taxi company in the world. All are cases when people who said it wouldn’t work turned out to be wrong.

There are hundreds and thousands of examples where the no’s were wrong. I think it’s more fun to imagine what can be than throw no’s at founders. How can it work, what if the whole world used the service? What could make this amazing for customers? The only thing we do know is things won’t be the same tomorrow as the were today, so what about that idea might change the world? It’s inspiring to believe and people and ideas, it’s easy to dismiss them.

The IT department as I knew it in early days of my career are fading away, because successful companies will all become technology companies. Technology both hardware and software will be built into the DNA of all successful organizations moving forward. Delivering on the technology expectations of your customers, employees and vendors will be so central to what is done that to have one department “in charge” of that will seem asinine. Good companies will deliver great technology solutions, companies that can’t will expire.

Let me drill down on this concept a little bit more. Dominos believes it’s a technology company that delivers pizza , Disney views their CEO As the CTO, Staples “stores” are really distribution centers for their website, Starbucks has more than 15% of their sales via mobile apps, every major car manufacturer was at the consumer ELECTRONICS show. Imagine insurance companies without online sales and claims management and banks without apps to deposit checks and make balance inquires. Can the largest retailers survive without a successful online strategy? Can energy companies be competitive without large amounts of data and systems to aid them in drilling? Are media companies going to survive without fully adopting digital distribution?

Conversely, is Amazon a technology company or a store? Is uber a taxi company or a technology company? Is AirBnb a competitor to Westin or just a technology company? Is warby parker a tech company or glasses store competing with lenscrafters ? These might have at one time been considered "startups" but now they are just plain companies. They are just companies that deliver products and services with a technology layer.

Companies are still going to need developers and other technical professionals, it’s just very likely those people will exist within the business units they are helping. The people that work in these positions will still do what they do but instead of reporting to a “CIO”, “CTO” or “Director of IT”, they’ll report to the VP of Product. Blame it on the Consumerization of IT, or just the pace of change but the landscape will look different soon.

Along the way there are sure to be many failures even the companies that are best at technology fail. Amazon wrote down 170 Million on the fire phone, Google Wave, Google Buzz, and Google plus, Microsoft Zune, surface, and bing, Apple’s ping, 3D tv’s all didn’t deliver on expectations. However, failure is part of learning what people want. Failure is what companies use to build what people do want.

Only through the process of trying do we learn what people want. The telegraph wasn’t needed because London had a good messenger boys. RCA turned down the first transistor radio, the inventor of the refrigerator died without selling one. Cell phone were for the rich and why would someone need to get a hold of me anytime? Can’t they wait till I get to the office or home, there’s nothing that can’t wait that long. Email? can’t I just walk down the hall or pick up the phone? Who uses this “world wide web”, how would anyone find us, we don’t need a website, Apple won’t make a dent in the cell phone market against Nokia.

So the successful companies of the future will be quick to jettison their “IT departments”. Professionals will be embedded in business units who try and fail, who succeed and then don’t. The winning companies will deliver products and services to their customers how and when they want them in amazing ways.

Many who’ve purchased the Android phones think those apple customers are “suckers”. They’ve overpaid for technology that is “old”, is copycat technology, or people just buy whatever Apple is selling (sheeple they say) . Recently I’ve heard lots of people claim apple isn’t innovative. Apple’ s iPhones are falling behind they say. I’d like to take issue with that.

Apple introduced the original iPhone in 2007. Here were the things that were missing that already existed in other phones.

• 3G network speeds.
• 3rd party apps and development
• GPS
• a removable battery
• Microsoft Exchange email
• A chat client, like blackberry had (BBM)

Here’s a list of things that apple “innovated” on
-making it easy and stylish to use a smartphone.

If you go back and look Nokia, Blackberry and Windows Mobile had all the “features” of the original iPhone and many had features the iPhone was missing. The blackberry could do email, had apps that developers could create, a removable battery and so forth. The windows Mobile device had color touch screens and a mobile browser. The point is that almost every bit of technology that the iPhone had, existed prior to the iPhone. That was true before apple made a phone too, there were thousands of mp3 players before the iPod yet the iPod became THE device to own. And it’s pretty much been true of every iPhone, iPad or apple device since. Apple isn’t going to put bleeding edge tech in their hardware, they are going to take existing technology and make it so your grandma can use it.

From a technology perspective what Apple did was make the technology very reliable, I had both a blackberry and windows mobile device, the blackberry was reliable yet ugly and limited on what it could do. The windows phone had to be rebooted often and was frustrating because it would lock up when using it. Neither did a great job of browsing the internet.

Apple came along and made a device that even executives wanted to carry and everyone wanted to hold. It was beautiful, functional and easy to use. If you don't believe me look how the Android team scrapped their plans for they were going to release after seeing the iPhone. That’s what apple does. They took something people wanted, and made it easy and reliable. They didn’t push the edge of technology.

This is the story of Apple it’s about taking existing computing systems and trying and make them easy and reliable. Every product launch that Apple makes you’ll find a list of things they “Should have included”. They limit your choices, they charge a premium for it, but almost certainly it will be the easiest to use.

And so it goes for phones just like everything in life that “you get what you pay for” or “You’re a sucker for paying that much” and neither side will convince the other, but to imply that apple quit “innovating” is ignoring the entire history of Apple.