Judging by marketing slogans, the ICT market is more fiercely competitive than ever, with every player claiming to offer something different as they fight over shrinking IT budgets.
The battle lines appear to be drawn, dividing the ICT sector into camps such as those who support open source and those who do not.
As a result of this and other similar perceptions, companies like Microsoft are routinely cast as antagonists opposite the supporters of open source. Although this may have been true at some time, things have clearly changed. Stereotypes are consequently misleading at best, plain dangerous at worst.
Despite intensifying competition on the surface, it may be argued that behind the scenes, the challenge of having to do more with less has introduced a new essentially anti-competitive dynamic. The clues are in the very marketing slogans designed to emphasise competitive advantage.
Different buzzwords, same thing
One has only to look at a small sample of marketing slogans to identify a shift towards integration.
Terms like interoperable, open, standards-based, dashboard view, and management software all boil down to the same thing. The reason for this shift is simple. As a direct result of the need to do more with less, IT customers are demanding more for less. It`s about time, right?
A strategy formulated by a proprietary software developer and a policy based on open source standard both have exactly the same aim.
Warwick Ashford, technology editor, ITWeb
Just this week, my attention was focused on Microsoft`s strategy of "innovative integration". None less than Microsoft founder Bill Gates is driving the strategy to ensure products are no longer developed in isolated silos, but instead deliver greater value through integration across every product set.
Microsoft`s strategy is quite praiseworthy, however, upon closer inspection, it is almost indistinguishable from the commitment by Computer Associates (CA) to a policy of "open innovation". The CA policy seeks to build product sets using open standards and combining internal development with ideas from the open source community.
I can`t see the difference
In other words, a strategy formulated by a proprietary software developer and a policy based on open source standard both have exactly the same aim. Can you see the difference? I can`t see the difference.
Rather than any altruistic purpose, I strongly suspect these and all allied strategies are simply aimed at meeting new market demands. Vendors are beginning to realise the only way of staying in the game is by delivering more for less through integration across product sets.
In this single example it is possible to see that traditionally opposing camps have far more in common than most realise. Traditionally proprietary software is no longer about developing in isolation as demonstrated by Microsoft`s interaction with a thriving developer community and its relatively new empowerment partnership programme for independent software vendors (ISVs).
Microsoft`s new approach to ISVs has a lot in common with the open source model. Microsoft gives ISVs access to core functionality and the opportunity of going to market with a new product by using their market sector knowledge to build specialised functionality on top of the basic core. Now that`s what I call real empowerment. Something simply selling off equity could never achieve.
Hopefully all this means that in future vendors will be compelled to deliver value because IT expenditure is finally becoming a business decision where the emphasis is no longer on technology itself, but on business value. Could it be the power is finally shifting to where it should have been all along?
It is often said strength comes through adversity, and that has been shown to be true for the IT industry. Infinite IT budgets may be the dream of vendors and CIOs, but recent years have shown that large budgets are not necessarily good for the industry as a whole. The reduction in IT spend of recent years has had a positive effect on the way IT customers and technology developers think.
The leaner years have resulted in a rationalisation and consolidation of the IT industry, a move towards aligning IT investment with business processes, and most importantly I think, a shift towards greater co‑operation for the benefit of producers and consumers alike.
Science fiction writers who have predicted the destruction of the human race by machines were hopefully wrong. Even though technology producers remain fierce competitors on the surface, the truth is that technology has the potential to unite us through the collaboration necessary in the pursuit of integration through common standards.
As the market consolidates, I firmly believe the remaining players will have no choice but to realise that only those who can meet the demand for value can be assured a future.
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