Nicholas D. Evans, in this blog for Computerworld, takes a look at the different eras that the IT industry has gone through. These evolutions in IT have brought about new innovations in computing, changing the way services are delivered to the business and end users. These key changes over time have arrived into the “fifth wave” according to Evans, bringing us users into Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud technologies (also known as SMAC). This blog article focuses on what benefits and impact SMAC can potentially bring in the next few years.
3 Emerging Market Forces
Evans also recognizes three emerging market forces, affecting all global trades, particularly IT and our methods of conducting business. These are:
A New Work Style Combining Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud
As part of this new architecture, IT departments will need a capability equivalent to a “user experience engine” to provide the SMAC technology integration, management and personalization layer providing a contextually-relevant experience to end users and supporting their new work style.
Digitization of business models and processes
In terms of IT infrastructure, a capability equivalent to a “digital assembly line” will be required by IT departments to provide agile assembly and dynamic execution of digital services supported by a hybrid cloud infrastructure leveraging software-defined principles.
The Information Inflection Point
In the SMAC era, IT departments will need to provide an information infrastructure layer capable of not only processing vast amounts of data streaming into the enterprise in real-time, but also capable of learning from this information and making intelligent decisions.
In this blog, Evans gives emphasis on what the so-called “5th wave of corporate IT” will bring to the table. In a much larger scale, the three market forces mentioned are alterations that will impact how IT supports, enables, and transforms business. Organizations with IT departments would need to train in knowing when to improve and when to install SMAC-enabled applications and foundations.
Read the Original Blog Post: http://blogs.computerworld.com/it-transformation/23244/smac-and-evolution-it
