It’s difficult to know which way the information technology barometer is swinging. On the one hand, data is becoming more complex and differentiated while software applications are also becoming more multifaceted. Add that reality to the streams of power that will come from quantum computing and we can surely expect an increasingly complicated future for IT.
But at the same time and on the other hand, data and software is becoming more compartmentalized, more granular and more discretely defined into specific types, specific use cases and specific best practice architectures. If we can create a taxonomy and classification system for all the new elements of computing we create, then (in the theory) we can slot them all together more quickly and more effectively.
Preintegrated perfection promise
This promise of preintegrated perfection is why the technology world is so focused on cloud services and the automation controls that it can exert upon them. If we break apart the old monolithic stacks of technology that we used 50-years ago and make them more modular, then we can create cloud computing networks that draw water (software and data) from various sources to create one combined and enriched elixir (application) that does the job it is supposed to.
This concept has been surfacing among IT vendor delivery strategies for some time now and German softwarehaus SAP has built an entire software delivery platform offering around it. SAP Leonardo is a combination of design assistance, cloud services, database and applications intended to provide some of that preintegrated promise. The software is differentiated into specific line-of business accelerator packages to provide fixed-price software and services (and support) bundles to address specific use cases.
As perhaps a sort of homage to the Mobile World Congress exhibition held in Barcelona this month, SAP chose this event to release its SAP Leonardo Industry Innovation Accelerator for Telecommunications — either that, or someone in product marketing has a calendar. This telco company package is supposed to help companies in the communications industry to identify margins of risk across their operations, track customer behaviours, analyze products and asset profitability, plus also predict outcomes based on company-specific performance data.
ARPU to IMPU
The telecommunications industry being the occasionally merciless business that it is, vendors in this space often talk about the finite amounts of money they can expect to get from each individual customer – we call this Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). SAP is attempting to elevate the conversation upwards towards a point where (as referenced in the previous paragraph) telco company business actions are carried out based on margin assessments that have been identified and analyzed for their worth – we call this an Individual Margin Per User (IMPU) business model.
“Telecommunications companies face increasing pressure on profitability, while regulation, commoditization and market saturation in traditional services present ongoing opportunity for digital disruption,” said Mala Anand, president, SAP Leonardo. “By drawing on SAP’s industry expertise and design-led engagement, our new industry accelerator can help carriers innovate from idea to a prototype with digital technology in six to eight weeks.”
Automated accelerators
In addition to telecommunications, SAP’s Leonardo accelerators are available for retail, consumer products, sports & entertainment, travel & transportation, chemicals, utilities, life sciences, oil and gas and mining.
So now is a time of technology automation, preintegrated engineering and compartmentalized service-based efficiency, which is good news for cloud computing and those customers who have drunk to the Kool-Aid and moved to datacenter-based IT and all its abstracted layers of virtualized wonder. But are too many automation services a bad thing, can we over-preintegrate and is there any risk of over-engineering at a higher level here?
People used to be able to fix their cars when they go wrong with a spanner. Today, a faulty car is more likely to need a reboot than an oil change (okay not exactly, but you get the point)… so where is all this leading us? Vendors in this space will reassure us that these new models are inherently flexible from the start i.e. that why they’re modular in the first place.
The age of monolithic IT is fading fast, but will we say the same of compartmentalized cloud in another 50-years from now? Let’s hope the answer is no and that we have learned a few lessons. Autodial is great, until you hit the wrong button.
