Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
I can’t pretend to know what folks thought about in ancient times. Did people ask if architects and architectures were useful or whether they were needed? In some areas today, I hear those questions; less in the area dealing with physical building spaces, but in the Information Technology space these questions create fear, uncertainty, and doubt that needs to be overcome to be successful.
continuing from
The CIO in the Cloud era
The IT issue and the Cloud solution (i)
The transition to Shadow IT and the Cloud (ii)
In last week’s post, “Trash or Treasure – What’s Your Legacy?”, I talked about how to define “legacy systems”. Essentially, as the divergence grows between the needs of social systems and the fitness for purpose of the software systems that enable them, the more likely that those software systems can considered “legacy”. The post attracted […]
continuing from
The CIO in the Cloud era
The IT issue and the Cloud solution (i)
The transition to Shadow IT and the Cloud (ii)
Big announcement at Dataworks today — IBM is giving up on Big Insights and partnering with Hortonworks. This seems not unexpected and only mildly interesting until you think deeply about it. Then it hits you: Hortonworks, after digesting Microsoft, is…
How do we model architecture?I’ve just received an invitation to an AEA Webinar with Len Fehskens – The Siren Song of Linear Thinking. Unfortunately I’m unable to join this event, but it sounds very interesting – to what extent is the practice of enterprise architecture based around simple, linear models? From experience I would say that early generations…
continuing from
The CIO in the Cloud era
The IT issue and the Cloud solution (i)
The revolution started with the shadow IT. Business felt satiated with the perpetual IT excuses and delays of the type “can’t”, “not now”, “we are so busy…”, &nbs…
continuing from
The CIO in the Cloud era
Yet, business is not too happy with the IT department. I cannot imagine why, you may say. Well, IT costs a big deal in comparison with rest of a business. Consider the numbing operationa expenditure on se…
I had an epiphany today about a major reason open source is disrupting enterprise software. This is perhaps one of those things that you have heard so much, you’ve gone numb to it. All the big giants are still alive and kicking, however; so is this really happening? The answer is yes, however the mechanics are not what you think. It is not simply just a cost play. The acquisition – one of the main weapons that big software vendors had to fight disruptors – is losing effectiveness. And that changes everything. Allow me to explain:
In the past, big vendors bought the smaller potential disruptors and got the code and customers. Cash disrupted the disruptor; investors got paid, and customers got the new technology as part of the big vendor’s larger suite. Everyone was happy.
In the open source model, the code is, well…..open source. The value is the people; and you can’t keep most people from leaving, which they will. Cool, talented open source developers don’t generally want to work for big, stoggie software vendors. Furthermore, customers bought into open source to avoid vendor lock in, so buying for the customers is not all that attractive either. This makes Hortonworks and Cloudera, for example, unattractive acquisition targets for the likes of IBM or Oracle. Hmmm…are you starting to see it?
Allow me to bring it all together: Open source is indeed erroding big software’s vendor’s profit; sure they are selling stuff, but open source disrupted sectors are not growing at the rate their stock price needs to keep investors happy. Investors will grow increasingly unhappy, cash will become scarce and big vendors will cut costs to prop up the bottom line and free up cash… for what – acquisitions? That doesn’t work like it used to. It’s is a downward spiral.
There are plenty of articles floating around about the role of the CIO today. Clearly, something is on people’s mind. What is the problem though? The questions appear to be about the CIO’s relationship to CMO (Marketing) and C…
Enterprise Architecture is much more than a list of components. Too often one sees diagrams in slide decks that are either simple lists, a layered view of domains, or a graphical hierarchy. And these are supposed to represent the ‘Architecture’? These visualisations are good to use to inform on the scope and context, but they […]
Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts on The Present and Future of the ArchiMate® Language. With the release of the ArchiMate 3.0 Specification last year, we now have a complete enterprise description language that has been adopted by architects worldwide in a wide range of organizations. It is now time for the ArchiMate Forum to reach out to users and better understand how the language is being used and how it should evolve. Therefore, the following post, like all others in this series, reflects the views of its authors, and will benefit from comments and discussion. You may refine, expand upon, or even disagree with elements of the post. Regardless, you will be shaping the future of the ArchiMate language.
So please, enjoy and engage!