For at least the last 15 or 20 years, CIO's have made enterprise application portfolio decisions with one thing in mind: simplify integration within the enterprise. But the need to build new business capabilities faster is driving the search for an architecturally consistent standard on which all enterprise systems and inter-enterprise collaboration is based. Enter Web Services Architecture.
While many questions remain and the advent of Web Services is only in its infancy, a noticeable shift has begun to occur. ISVs are realising the importance of developing applications that are based on open, engineering standards and that are vendor neutral -- in other words, technologically agnostic. The days of designing applications in proprietary development environments are at an end. Open systems design means openness that enables complete interoperability between disparate business systems, hardware platforms and even across the Internet.
Why? Despite what many technology vendors may believe, customers drive business innovation and change. Customers develop the problems, technologists develop the solutions. Innovation is based on what problems a customer faces. Do they care about the underlying protocols or technologies to their solution? No, only that it works in easing the pain they are experiencing. So, where does it currently hurt? To put it plainly, companies need relief from the massive costs associated with complex, monolithic enterprise applications, they need "plumbing" that facilitates the free flow of data throughout the enterprise, and they need freedom of choice when negotiating the purchase of packaged business systems.
The transition of enterprise applications to the open Web Services Architecture is a fundamental conversion that software providers must undergo to meet their customers' needs and to remain successful. The customer pain has been diagnosed and a commitment to the adoption of open, standards-based platforms is the initial step. Web Services Architecture relieves the pain by:
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Easing the integration and training costs associated with mammoth application implementations
According to a Gartner study, 68 percent of software implementation is "gluing" applications together, connecting them to one another and to required data. The annual costs of such projects? Approximately US$120 billion. Applications based on open architectural standards like J2EE or .NET deliver explicit API's and XML-based integration with other enterprise applications, lowering the time and staffing costs associated with integration projects. - Enabling the free flow of information throughout the enterprise and with trading partners
In its current form, data within the enterprise is siloed, readily available to organisations as a whole only through the rare integration window. But while you can walk through a window, it's easier to go through a door. Web Services Architecture opens the door for all to access vital business information, ending the age of the silo. And integrating disparate business systems enables an organisation to achieve true real-time collaboration with the enterprise's increasingly-important trading community. Just as superstition once closed the minds of people to new and better ideas, business creativity is hurt by the cost and constraints that result from too heavy reliance on a belief in single-vendor solutions. -
Customer choice
Ask a company to name the best application for ERP, CRM and SCM, and you're likely to get the name of three (or even four) different vendors. While vendors may fall in love with the idea of having customers standardise their operations on one platform (theirs), the reality is that a customer will purchase different technologies from competing vendors to address different problems and ought to avoid single-vendor solutions under normal circumstances. It's common sense. Where does a single vendor ever make the best product for all purposes in its category...personal transportation, electronics, apparel?
The problems are real, the solutions are known and the demand is growing. That said, have ISVs heeded the call? Some have; many have not. While many technology providers talk about it, few have made the necessary investments to deliver; and there are no shortcuts. Once the market's "tipping point" is reached and customers begin to cascade down the path of open, standards-based architectures, companies that don't understand or have not committed to the transition will be left in the wake and could become prey to has-been vendors feeding off of their installed base.
Jack Young joined MRO Software in 1985 and is currently Executive Vice President of the Products & Technology division. Young helped build the company's flagship product, MAXIMO, into a leading enterprise asset maintenance solution.
