ARC05-IS The Future of IT
Matt Deacon
Microsoft UK
UK Architect Council

Agenda
• What’s happening in the world of software?
• What are the Implications for the Enterprise?
• What could the IT of the Future look like?

Galton’s Ox!

Exercising the “computer”
• Name/Alias/email (optional)
• Organisation type:
• Enterprise (S,M,L)
• System Integrator/Consultancy
• Software Vendor
• Outsourcer
• Other
• Job Function:
• Developer
• Development Manager
• Architect (Solution, Infrastructure, Enterprise)
• Consultant
• Other

What’s happening in the world of
software?

Historically
80’s
70’s
90’s 00’s
Centralised, Managed Democratised, Adaptable

Drivers
Business Social
• •
Costs Web 2.0
• •
Agility Gaming
• •
Globalisation Creativity
• •
Sourcing models Communication and collaboration
• •
Risk Social Relationships (trust /
rating)
• Markets / Long Tail
• Power of numbers
• Innovation
• Knowledge workforce
Technical Technology
• “Green” IT • REST/SOAP
• •
Connectivity AJAX
• •
Bandwidth Dynamic Languages
• •
Hardware Costs RSS / ATOM / SSE
• • Blogs and Wiki’s
Multiple Devices
• •
SaaS, SOA, Web 2.0 WS*

Catalysts
1. Externalising IT - Sourcing outside of the enterprise.
2. Application Decoupling - to increase agility
3. Ad-hoc collaboration - across the business
4. Consumer-grade IT - becoming good enough
5. Unmanaged PC - from control to enablement
Cost & Complexity - of “old ways”
6.

Service transition
• “Software as a Service” is the catalyst with potential to
• Transform the way IT relates to and thinks about their role as
providers of computing services
• Change ITs focus from deploying and supporting applications
to managing the capabilities that those applications provide.

What is Software as a Service?
Definition: “Application delivery model where a software
vendor develops a web-native application and hosts
and operates it”1
• SaaS Key characteristics2:
• network-based
• Remote hosted/access
• one-to-many (multi-tenant) model
• No software
• Subscription based pricing model
1 Foresters
2 Characteristics according to IDC

The Service’s Spectrum
The continuum of hosted software services
On-Premise SaaS
Licensing Perpetual Subscription Transaction Ad-Funded
Location On-Premise Appliance Third-Party Hosted
Life Cycle Corporate IT ASP Black Box
Management
Reality: Is a future where local software and remote services
seamlessly interact with one another. Software makes services
better and services make software better.

Software + Services
Web 2.0
Service
SaaS
SOA

The S+S Framework
Communities & Partnerships
“Attached”
“Finished” Services
Tooling and Guidance
Services
“Heads”
Desktop Web Mobile Voice
Delivery
On-premise Hosted Ms Hosted
“Building block” Services
Windows Platform

The S+S Platform Landscape
“Cloud”
Client Server
XBOX XBOX Live
Home Server
Consumer
Media Center
“Live”
Mobile
Vista
Services Platform
Office Live
Business
Windows
Server “Online”

The “Services Platform”
Architecture
Applications and Solutions
Live Platform Services
Cloud Infrastructure Services
Global Foundation Services

What are the Implications for the
Enterprise?

The FIT Project
An investigation into 21st Century
IT Sourcing
UK Architect Council

FIT Hypotheses
1. IT is moving to a multi-sourcing model
2. Sourcing/Service providers will deliver services at
finer levels of specialisation
3. Services will be provided both on and off-premise
4. Emerging architectures (SOA, SaaS & Web 2.0) are
enabling this transformation

Workshop 1
Pro’s and Con’s of new sourcing strategies

What’s going to cause the chosen
sourcing strategies to succeed?
1. Scalable
2. Cost reduction
3. Economies of scope
• Works well in constrained problem domains
4. Upgrade speed
5. Benefits of competition
6. Agility/Time to market
7. Leverage vertical knowledge
8. Efficient (when works!)
9. Easy management of risk (SLAs etc)
10. Other (Please specify)

What’s going to cause the chosen
sourcing strategies to fail?
Organisations don’t know its own IT – Too many unknowns
1.
Loss of control – vendor lock-in
2.
Risk – data ownership and security
3.
4. Ability of vendor to provide service
5. Culture clashes across organisations
6. Metrics (SLAs) different, hard to define/synchronise, not covered
7. Management overhead
8. Knowledge share/retention overhead/ Deskilling
9. Lack of accountability
10. Customer experience
11. Stifles innovation
12. Vendor goes out of business
13. Other (please specify)

Workshop 2
Making things tangible

Making things tangible
• Sourcing opportunities
• What tangible opportunities exist for portfolio-based sourcing to
add value to the organisation?
• Transition strategy
• What practical steps need to be taken, in what order and who
realistically needs to be involved?
• Organisational structure/processes
• What level of organisational maturity, and what pre-requisites
need to be in place before embarking?
• Success criteria
• What criteria and metrics can be used to measure and judge
success as things progress?

From 4 perspectives
Business
IT
Solution
Organisation
Infrastructure

Setting the Context
• BPO is working so we don’t need to revisit that
• Service provision is pretty well established in every tier
of IT
• However it is not always shaped/delivered as a service
• Starting point is to consider what the organisation
doesn’t want to do for itself
• Ultimately, about turning resources into a service i.e.
good old utility computing
• Manage less/more focused

Challenges
• Self-knowledge – does organisation understand itself?
• Trusting outsourcers to manage your business
• Resistance when deep knowledge held around
mainframe and legacy
• Technical challenges on the part of the provider
• Requirement for packaged SLAs vs. Custom definitions
• Can provider join into the change management process
• Avoiding “over sourcing”

Sourcing opportunities
• Needs well defined boundaries
• Look for Business Capabilities
• Differentiate between core & non-core
• What is core is often the data not the process

Transition strategy
• Board level sponsorship
• Need to understand commercials/contracts
• Know where you’re headed
• Definition of an enterprise architecture
• Action plan & roadmap
• Strong Governance “with teeth”
• Good Change management
• Need to define a criteria for sourcing
• Well governed selection/due diligence process
• Training and change management process
• Ring fence legacy while migrating

Organisational structure
• What people need to be left in IT organisation?
• Managers/co-ordinators/architects
• Design authority for business design, technical design
• Commercial management
• Governance, change management
• Business lead/IT delivered
• Buy in experience at first
• E.g. contract writing
• Service desk should manage the problem end to end

Success criteria
• Measurable outcomes
• Operational excellence – cost savings, financial targets
• Customer satisfaction
• SLAs met
• Demonstrable sustainable agility
• Compliance with regulations
• Can I transition service to another vendor?
• Have to be able to measure before, during and after!

What could the IT of the Future look
like?

IT Organisation of the Future
Business Stakeholder Group
- Board-level responsibility/ownership
- Capability Owners/sponsors
- Customers
Commercial IP Architecture & Service & Change
Department Design Management
- Monitoring
- IP & Data Protection - Portfolio Management - Integration
- SLA/KPIs - Standards & Governance - Service Reporting
- Penalties - Roadmap - Scheduling
- Prime/ Sub Contracts - Design Authority - Service desk
Capability Delivery Team
- Supplier/Service Selection
- Due diligence

Predictions for the future of IT
1. IT will physically 2. ITs boundaries
8. Architecture
contract will expand
4. Commercials and and Design will
Service management will be the key
be major IT functions technology
related roles
5. But these can
be sourced
externally too.
3. Services
provided to the
organisation will
IT
IT be at finer levels
of specialisation
6. Data is the key
BUT external
asset to be
broker providers
protected over
process will hide much of
this
7. But this too could
be hosted externally

Thank you!
Matt Deacon
mattd@microsoft.com
blogs.technet.com/matt_deacon

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This presentation is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.