Times have changed. Mainframes gave way to Client/Server, only to give way to the Internet. But the delivery vehicle for IT services is being reshaped into so many different forms lately, it is hard to keep up. The traditional software life-cycle of an organization: purchasing, installing on-site, configuring, tuning, managing, retiring is being turned on its head.
Gartner has identified 14 different IT delivery mechanisms that they expect will make a sizable impact on the traditional life-cycle approach over the next five years.
- Business Process Utilities
- Infrastructure Utilities
- Storage as a Service
- Grid Computing
- Communications as a Service
- Utility Computing
- Capacity on Demand
- Remote Management Services
- SaaS
- Web Platforms
- Community Source
- Software Streaming
- Software-based ‘Appliances’
- User-owned Devices
Some analysts have called the report “nonsense” and overblown hype, comparing the predictions to those of how the ASP market would reshape IT. And there is certainly some amount of truth to that.
But… while the world doesn’t always change as fast or as dramatically as some analysts might envision, no one doubts that things aren’t changing, and Gartner is highlighting a set of trends that ultimately will have a strong influence on the next direction for IT. It’s unlikely that all categories listed here will ever take off, but it’s only prudent to keep tabs on the direction that companies and entrepreneurs are now pushing the IT envelope. Given enough pushes, technology as we know it today will eventually topple.
