Welcome to the Fight, Sweden!

This week in Stockholm, I stepped onto the main stage at Radar Summit 2025 to deliver a keynote I suspected would provoke a bit of a reaction.

What I didn’t expect was the afterwards.

People didn’t just say, “Interesting talk.”
They approached me with relief - genuine, visible relief.
For some, it was inspirational. It was the first time they’d heard someone articulate the thing they’ve felt for years but rarely say out loud:

Something is fundamentally wrong with how the IT industry works.

Not the technology.
Not the talent.
But the system we’ve all been conditioned to operate inside.

The personal stories I shared on stage, the iPad story, the car story, weren’t metaphors for effect. They were symptoms of a bigger truth I was getting the audience to connect with:

Somewhere along the way, we stopped owning what we paid for.

Sweden Understood It Immediately - And That’s Exactly Why the Warning Matters

I’ve always love travelling to Sweden - the culture, the people, the mindset.
It’s a wonderful place with an identity that blends humility and ambition in a way few countries manage. And Sweden isn’t just one of the world’s most innovative nations. It’s one of the earliest adopters of new technology.

That cultural instinct - ambitious, curious, progressive - has fuelled and cemented its global reputation as an innovation powerhouse.

Perhaps it was of no major surprise for me to learn then that this year alone in 2025, Sweden is projected to spend 3.6% of its GDP on R&D and innovation - one of the highest figures anywhere in the world.

Roughly 80% of that investment is expected to come from the private sector, the very enterprise leaders I was speaking to.

But here’s the paradox:

The same culture that drives innovation can just as easily fast-track dependency.

• First movers modernise early.
• Early adopters upgrade often.
• Innovators stay ahead by instinct.

But that same instinct places them right at the front of the industry’s upgrade treadmill - the first to adopt, and therefore the first to be forced forward again and again.

Prior to my keynote we all heard from Hans Werner's opening statement that in today’s geopolitical climate, where digital dependencies shape national resilience, this isn’t just an IT concern.

It’s a real sovereignty issue.
A resilience issue.
And a major strategic vulnerability.

Because innovation without autonomy eventually becomes fragility; progress without ownership gradually turns into exposure; and adoption without real control will always create risk.

I didn’t go to Stockholm to critique Sweden’s innovation culture. Far from it.
I went to help protect it.

Because if Sweden wants to remain an innovation leader, it must recognise that its greatest strength can also become its single greatest threat, especially in an industry engineered to monetise momentum.

It's not a Technology Problem

... it's a Conditioning Problem.

Let’s be crystal clear: this isn’t about outdated software or legacy systems.

It’s about decades of dogma and conditioning.

While I was on stage speaking about the software tax, the hamster wheel, and the “best before date” myth, something happened that I’ve never seen so unanimously during a prior presentation:

Heads nodded across the room.

Not because the ideas were new, but because the conditioning was finally visible.

We’ve been taught to accept:

• Support ends when the vendor says it does.
• Risk magically spikes after an arbitrary EOS date.
• Upgrades equal innovation - even when they don’t.
• Compliance means obedience, not strategy.
• Roadmaps must align to someone else’s quarterly targets.

And we’ve normalised it. I mean we are actively peddling premature obsolescence.

No CIO would ever knowingly admit they’re planning millions in spend simply to help a vendor hit an ARR number… yet funnily enough, that’s exactly what most “modernisation cycles” amount to.

The hamster wheel isn’t a flaw in the system. It is the system!

And the cost of obedience is no longer subtle.

It’s now impossible to ignore.

The Cost of Obedience Is Real - And it's Growing

On stage, I shared some real-world cases where organisations learned the hard way:

• Massive commercial losses
• Tens of customers displaced
• Multi-day outages
• Careers ended
• Operations disrupted
• Trust destroyed

Not because the technology failed - but because the system of dependency failed.

Forced upgrades, vendor-driven migrations, and “mandatory” modernisation have caused catastrophic damage across global enterprises.

And no, this is not me creating my own FUD.
This isn’t theoretical.
It’s documented.
It’s measurable.
And, the single most important message you need to take from this is: it’s avoidable.

And Here’s the Truth the Industry Never Expected You to Say Out Loud

Your software licenses are perpetual.
Your rights do not expire.
Software does not have a “best before” date.
And you have every right to choose an independent path.

When organisations embrace that truth, everything shifts:

• Control
• Stability
• Freedom
• Innovation
• Long-term cost reduction

In Stockholm I shared some examples of real customer stories from across the globe. Organisations who stayed secure, stayed stable, and stayed regulatory compliant. They avoided unnecessary upgrades, extended the capabilities of their existing systems beyond the vendor's lifecycle, and redirected millions to their innovation agenda. That innovation is allowing them to outpace their competitors and maximise competitiveness - all because they stepped off the treadmill.

They did'nt modernise on command.
They modernised on their own terms.

So Why This Blog? Why Now?

Well, quite simply because the conversations in Stockholm - backstage, in hallways, in breakout rooms - all made something unmistakably clear to me:

CIOs are now ready.

They’re hungry for honesty.
They’re tired of inherited roadmaps.
They want autonomy. Not the illusion of it.

Leaders told me:

“I’m tired of my strategy being shaped by an EOS date.”

“We spend more on maintaining the vendor’s roadmap than our own.”

“We’re trapped in this cycle we never chose.”

And they’re right, but awareness is only the beginning.

The next step, the brave one, is shifting from dependency to sovereignty.

That’s why this blog exists.

A place for open, unfiltered conversations about:

• The system behind the system
• How the industry engineered obedience
• The real cost of forced modernisation
• The art of the possible when organisations reclaim control
• The geopolitical stakes of digital dependency
• The future of IT leadership built on autonomy

This isn’t a company blog.

It’s a cause.

My Message to Sweden - And to Every CIO Who Cares About the Future

If Sweden wants to remain one of the world’s innovation leaders it must pair:

Ambition with autonomy.
Adoption with ownership.
And speed with sovereignty.

Because the upgrade cycle really doesn’t care about your roadmap. Vendor timelines don’t care about your budget, and forced modernisation certainly doesn’t care about national innovation output.

You cannot lead the world in innovation if your technology strategy is dictated by someone else’s business model, but you certainly will inherit their risks if you do.

So here’s my ask, and it's the same one I shared on stage:

Protect your innovation culture.
Challenge the treadmill.
Question dependency.
Own your roadmap.
And defend your digital sovereignty.

And if that makes you part of the resistance? Well... Good!

Welcome to the fight.
Welcome to the cause.
Let’s break the lock-in.