Slow and steady wins the race -- or does it?

Apple and Google run at a faster pace than their predecessors. Apple introduces new products often: new iPhones, new iPad tablets, new versions of iOS; Google does the same with Nexus phones and Android.

Apple and Google's quicker pace is not limited to the introduction of new products. They also drop items from their product line.

The "old school" was IBM and Microsoft. These companies moved slowly, introduced new products and services after careful planning, and supported their customers for years. New versions of software were backwards compatible. New hardware platforms supported the software from previous platforms. When a product was discontinued, customers were offered a path forward. (For example, IBM discontinued the System/36 minicomputers and offered the AS/400 line.)

IBM and Microsoft were the safe choices for IT, in part because they supported their customers.

Apple and Google, in contrast, have dropped products and services with no alternatives. Apple dropped .Mac. Google dropped their RSS reader. (I started this rant when I learned that Google dropped their conversion services from App Engine.)

I was about to chide Google and Apple for their inappropriate behavior when I thought of something.

Maybe I am wrong.

Maybe this new model of business (fast change, short product life) is the future?

What are the consequences of this business model?

For starters, businesses that rely on these products and services will have to change. These businesses can no longer rely on long product lifetimes. They can no longer rely on a guarantee of "a path forward" -- at least not with Apple and Google.

Yet IBM and Microsoft are not the safe havens of the past. IBM is out of the PC business, and getting out of the server business. Microsoft is increasing the frequency of operating system releases. (Windows 9 is expected to arrive in 2015. The two years of Windows 8's life are much shorter than the decade of Windows XP.) The "old school" suppliers of PC technology are gone.

Companies no longer have the comfort of selecting technology and using it for decades. Technology will "rev" faster, and the new versions will not always be backwards compatible.

Organizations with large IT infrastructures will find that their technologies are less homogeneous. Companies can no longer select a "standard PC" and purchase it over a period of years. Instead, every few months will see new hardware.

Organizations will see software change too. New versions of operating systems. New versions of applications. New versions of online services (software as a service, platform as a service, infrastructure as a service, web services) will occur -- and not always on a convenient schedule.

More frequent changes to the base upon which companies build their infrastructure will mean that companies spend more time responding to those changes. More frequent changes to the hardware will mean that companies have more variations of hardware (or they spend more time and money keeping everyone equipped with the latest).

IT support groups will be stressed as they must learn the new hardware and software, and more frequently. Roll-outs of internal systems will become more complex, as the target base will be more diverse.

Development groups must deliver new versions of their products on a faster schedule, and to a broader set of hardware (and software). It's no longer acceptable to deliver an application for "Windows only". One must include MacOS, the web, tablets, and phones. (And maybe Kindle tablets, too.)

Large organizations (corporations, governments, and others) have developed procedures to control the technology within (and to minimize costs). Those procedures often include standards, centralized procurement, and change review boards (in other words, bureaucracy). The outside world (suppliers and competitors) cares not one whit about a company's internal bureaucracy and is changing.

The slow, sedate pace of application development is a thing of the past. We live in faster times.

"Slow and steady" used to win. The tortoise would, in the long run, win over the hare. Today, I think the hare has the advantage.