You Say You Want a (Tech) Revolution?
You Say You Want a (Tech) Revolution?
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
All right, all right
John Lennon and Paul McCartney couldn’t have had a clue about the societal or technological changes that would take place in the 44 years since they penned their anthem to change.
It can still be hard to tell if what we’re witnessing is a revolution – or simply a natural evolution – especially if you read the marketing hype around new technology products. Of course, it may be that we can’t recognize a revolution until after the fact. Or maybe marketers desperate to differentiate their product or service are overusing the word.
In the world of enterprise software, here are just a few of the technologies that were once called revolutionary that have since become stepping-stones in the evolution of IT.
- The World Wide Web
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Virtualization
- SaaS, IaaS, PaaS
- Cloud computing
- Mobile computing
- Social media
- The “app store” model for purchasing software
- …and the list goes on and on
Any one of them, by itself, is a sign of evolution. But when you take them all together and look at the huge impact they’re having on enterprise software, it’s starting to look as if all of these changes together really are bringing about a revolution.
So how do you make sure that everything is going to “be all right” as you navigate through the significant changes in the way you plan, develop, deploy, manage, and pay for enterprise software? By getting rid of old patterns of thinking even faster than you are updating outdated and inflexible technology.
We’re all sick and tired of legacy systems that slow down our organizations and gobble up our budget. But the truth is that in many organizations, it’s old ideas and old procedures and processes – not old technology – that are really holding us back.
One of those old ideas is the traditional approach to enterprise software license management. No one likes it when an audit turns up over-used applications that require a true-up payment. IDC says that 24% of large enterprises have paid a true-up of more than $1 million following a software license audit.
A most unwelcome revolution is underway in the way companies look at their IT budget. Peter Sondergaard, a senior vice president at Gartner, told the 2012 Gartner Symposium/ITxpo audience that “Every budget is an IT budget.” CIOs are increasingly being hit with transfers of unplanned and unapproved costs incurred by other departments.
It starts, Sondergaard says, when the marketing department spends on software to help them manage social media, the sales department signs up for cloud-based CRM, and individuals with credit cards sign up for Dropbox accounts and submit their expense reports. “It isn’t new, but it is accelerating,” Sondergaard says. “By 2018, many companies will spend 90% of their technology budget outside of IT.”
Of course, these departmental expenses don’t just create cost issues, but also support, security, back-up, compliance, and discovery issues as well.
So how do you make sure that these unwelcome revolutions don’t derail your enterprise software plans? Get help from the experienced enterprise software management pros at InfoVision. We’re getting more and more calls from clients who need experienced strategic resource teams who can help them review their potential risk from software licensing non-compliance, and we’ve developed a methodology that can help you identify and manage departmental spending and software assets. Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help you.