Dennis Kennedy

Ray Ozzie is the CEO of Groove Networks and the creator of Lotus Notes. He's written a new article outlining his predictions on dominant trends in computing. Not suprisingly, his vision involves greater collaboration and virtual workspaces, but Ozzie, a blogger (and it's great to see that his sabbatical from posting may be ending), sees the increasing number of inputs and quantity of information we deal with driving this process of change. He notes, "We're chained to e-mail and the Web, drowning in an information flood that leaves us feeling more and more like human message-processing machines." Many will agree with this sentiment.

Ultimately, he argues, "these changes will transform the personal computer into an interpersonal computer. This will be a rich, self-synchronized and readily interchangeable device focused specifically on people and what they do with one another online."

His message is an optimistic one. He says, "Even though our current use of PCs, productivity tools, e-mail and the Web seems quite sophisticated, we've only just begun to understand how to apply them and effectively realize their benefits. The next 10 years will find us moving decidedly from an era of personal productivity to one of joint productivity and social software. "