Hi,
I did think of something else to write about, after all.
It's about my recent guest editorial in SD Times.
Reading this over, I wish it read a bit more clearly. The point is the huge expense IT departments face if the enterprise software industry doesn't standardize.
The big irony of standardization efforts for enterprise software is that vendors tend to promote their involvement on behalf of the user, although the economic interests of vendors and users are not perfectly aligned.
Do we get enough out of the standardization process to meet the vendors' interests? Is that enough to meet the users' interests?
The major economic factor of course is software procurement, and enterprise buyers are showing signs they are getting ready to enforce change in buying behavior.
The acceptance of open source is a good indicator of the perceived shift in value for software, from something new and uniquely able to solve a problem toward commodity that can be multiple-sourced.