What's the most destructive force in the tech world, the thing that has nearly killed BlackBerry, pushed Dell to go private, and made a mess of Microsoft?
        在科技世界，最具毀滅性的力量是什麼？是什麼幾乎斷送了黑莓公司，使戴爾公司被迫私有化，並令微軟陷入一團糟？

        Conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley would finger one of the following technologies: smartphones, tablets, social networks, 'the cloud,' app platforms, or some other inscrutable bit of jargon.
        Actually, though, the most destructive, unpredictable, and fickle force in the tech industry is much closer to home: It's you and me and everyone we know.
        可實際上，科技產業最具毀滅性、最不可預見和最變幻莫測的力量距離我們的生活可比上面的東西要近得多：這種力量就是你、我和我們身邊的每一個人。

        In the not-too-distant past, most of us didn't have much of a say in the technologies we used every day. Instead, your gadgets were delivered to you from afar, chosen by faceless people in nameless offices based on criteria that you didn't understand. If you went to buy a cellphone, you'd be presented with a handful of devices that were approved for your carrier, and they were all locked down in ways that prevented you from running apps that conflicted with the carrier's business plans. In your living room, you had a cable-company issued set-top box, and if its video-on-demand system didn't feature your favorite show, you'd better find a new favorite.
        At the top of the tech food chain sat your boss--or, more specifically, your company's chief information officer. Most of the world's tech devices were purchased for corporate use, and IT guys tended to make decisions based on security and price rather than user-friendliness. Tech companies that catered to CIOs rather than users tended to thrive. That's why--whether you liked it or not--your office computer was made by Dell, it ran Windows and Office, and why your company-issued phone was a BlackBerry.
        就在並不遙遠的過去，我們中的大多數人對於我們日常使用的科技還沒有什麼話語權。
        全球大部分的科技設備都是為企業使用而採購的，IT人員傾向于按照安全性和價格標準做出選擇，而不是按照用戶友好程度。那些迎合首席資訊長的科技公司往往比那些迎合用戶的科技公司更容易生存。

        Then, more or less overnight, a series of technological and marketing revolutions--like ubiquitous broadband Internet and the lure of consumer devices such as the iPhone--completely upended the market for technology. Over the past few years, for the first time, we 'end users' have been allowed to choose the tech we want to use at home, on our wireless networks, and, crucially, at the office.
        Just a few years ago, BlackBerry Ltd.'s executives were promising that their gadgets would win out over rivals because the BlackBerry was 'way ahead' on 'CIO friendliness.' But the beleaguered execs hadn't considered that CIOs themselves might lose their power. As employees began demanding the ability to use the phones, tablets, and apps that we had at home, the most forward-thinking corporations found ways to allow a whole new class of technology onto their networks.
        Now you could use an iPhone instead of a BlackBerry, an iPad instead of a Dell computer, and Google Docs instead of Word. In the end, CIO friendliness couldn't help BlackBerry one bit.
        而後，差不多一夜之間，一系列的科技和市場行銷革新――比如無處不在的寬頻網路和來自iPhone等消費電子設備的誘惑――完全顛覆了科技市場。
        隨著員工開始要求在辦公場所能使用他們在家使用的手機、平板電腦和應用程式，那些最有先見之明的公司已經找到了將一整套全新科技融入辦公系統的辦法。

     
        BlackBerry's downfall and the struggles of Dell and Microsoft offer an object lesson for any firm trying to crack the 'enterprise' tech market. It suggests that even if you want to sell technology to CIOs, you can't forget employees, the people who will actually have to use your stuff.
        'It's an amazing lesson in what happens when one set of buyers implements a technology for another set of users, without a care or sensitivity for what the users were going to need to get their jobs done,' says Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box Inc., one of the Valley's most promising enterprise startups.
        實踐表明，即使你希望把科技產品賣給首席資訊長，你也不能忘記企業員工，因為他們才是你的產品的真正使用者。
        矽谷最具潛力的初創公司之一Box公司(Box Inc.)的首席執行長亞倫・利維(Aaron Levie)表示：“當一群買家替另一群用戶決定他們將使用的科技產品，而對這些使用者的工作需求漠不關心時，其結果給大家帶來了活生生的教訓。”

        Box sells a cloud-storage platform to big corporate customers. Yet unlike enterprise companies of yesteryear, Mr. Levie says his engineers and product teams can never stop thinking about employees--the people who'll actually be using his stuff.
        Box exemplifies a strategy I once termed the Facebookization of the enterprise: 'We've combined the product-designed mind-set of Google or Facebook with the sales strategy you'd see at a firm like Salesforce.com and the better parts of Oracle,' Mr. Levie says.
        Consider Box's latest product, a document-collaboration app called BoxNotes. When two people in different locations are typing on the same document, BoxNotes highlights each user's changes by showing their faces--a trick that Mr. Levie proudly admits was inspired by Facebook's ChatHeads messaging feature.
        Box公司正是我曾經稱之為“企業Facebook化”策略的例證。利維表示：“我們將穀歌或Facebook的產品設計觀念，與你在Salesforce.com和甲骨文優質業務上看到的銷售策略結合了起來。”
        Box公司的最新產品是一款名為BoxNotes的文檔協作應用程式。當兩名位於不同地點的用戶在同一文檔上打字時，BoxNotes可以通過顯示使用者頭像來突出每位用戶對文檔的修改。這項產品特色是受到了Facebook的ChatHeads消息功能的啟發。

        Even in its approach to sales, Box departs from the enterprise-tech model of the past. 'Until recently, we would actually avoid talking to the CIO or another IT buyer at a company,' Mr. Levie says. Instead, Box would approach a company's head of marketing or sales--and once people in those departments started using Box, employees would spread the word throughout the company, eventually forcing the IT department to adopt Box.
       即使在銷售策略上，Box公司也沒有沿用過去的企業科技模式。“實際上，直到最近，我們都在避免與公司的首席資訊長或其他的IT採購人員直接對話。”Box公司採取的方式是與公司的市場和行銷部門主管接觸。一旦這些部門的員工開始使用Box的服務，那麼員工就會在公司內部宣傳Box，並最終促使IT部門採納Box。

        Call it the case of the incredibly shrinking IT Guy: In the past, CIOs and their staffs had a reputation for being snarky, geeky guys who were always looking for ways to tell employees what they couldn't do. Now, at the most progressive companies, the tech department's main job isn't to say no. Instead, it's to find a way to let employees safely run any device or program they like. The thinking goes like this: Employees are most productive when they're allowed to work with the tools that make them happy.
        我們可以將這種變化稱為“IT人員形象的大萎縮”。過去，首席資訊長和IT人員以惡聲惡氣的電腦怪人而著稱，他們總是想盡辦法告訴員工什麼不能做。現在，在最為開明的公司，技術部門的主要工作並不是說“不”。相反，他們的主要工作已經變成了想辦法讓員工可以安全地運行他們喜歡的所有設備或程式。大致思路就是：當員工被准許使用能讓他們開心的工具工作時，他們才最具創造性。

        According to the research firm CB Insights, startups focused on the enterprise rather than consumer marketplace are now seeing renewed interest in the Valley. These companies would be wise to keep the BlackBerry lesson in mind. Any firm whose products will mainly be used by nontechies within the organization--that is, companies selling customer-relationship management software, sales software, analytics software--will need to create tools that work just as well as the consumer-grade tech we get from the likes of Apple and Google.
        據調查公司CB Insights稱，那些專注於企業市場而非消費者市場的初創公司，目前在矽谷看到 了新的關注點。對這些公司來講，明智的做法是將黑莓的教訓牢記於心。對於每一家產品主要面向企業中非技術員工的公司，也就是那些銷售客戶關係管理軟體、銷售軟體和分析軟體的公司，它們都有必要創造出性能可與蘋果公司和穀歌公司的普通消費產品媲美的的工具。

        For workers and for startups like Box, the new reality is glorious. Hallelujah. We'll all get better tech at work! For enterprise firms hooked on their proximity to CIOs, it's the end of the world.
        對於員工和像Box這樣的初創公司來講，新的現實無比美好。哈利路亞！我們工作時可以使用更好的科技產品和服務了。而對於那些執迷不悟地迎合首席資訊長的公司來講，這就是世界末日。