Open Group targets weakness in integration

The ability to integrate different applications together in order to build more complex and targeted solutions to business and operational problems is one of the most important underpinnings of modern IT. That capability has grown immensely in importance since the emergence and growth of the cloud, and it has also become more of a problem area.

And some of those problems have been highlighted by a recent research study undertaken by international vendor-and technology-neutral consortium, The Open Group. This shows that over a quarter of businesses are not equipped to deal with the convergence of new technologies, including mobility, social networks, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT), at a time when their impact on the future ways of managing and conducting business, and especially their collective impact in those areas, are just starting to be felt.

The study, conducted in August and September, found that while 95 percent of respondents believe the convergence of these technologies represents an opportunity for business, a significant proportion are still ill-equipped to take advantage of them.

According to the findings, released today, mobility currently has the greatest take-up of these technologies, at 50 percent, and IoT has the least, at 17 percent. It also reported that security at 57 percent, vendor lock-in at 51 percent, integration at 45 percent, and regulatory compliance at 42 percent are the main problems that are encountered or foreseen with software that enables use of these convergent technologies for business purposes.

The study also revealed that  84 percent of the sample from companies that are creating solutions want to deal with two or more of the technologies in combination. Also, the first problem that must be overcome is for solutions creators to help potential customers develop an understanding of the technologies. This is followed by integrating with products, services and solutions from other suppliers, and using more than one technology in combination.

“Over the past few years, industry analysts and practitioners have noted the convergence of four to six technologies which offer the potential to create new business models and system designs,” said Dr. Chris Harding, Forum Director of the Open Group Forum, Open Platform 3.0. “However, they also pose architectural issues and structural considerations which will need to be overcome in order for businesses to benefit.

“Today’s findings confirm the value of an open platform to protect users of these technologies from vendor lock-in. They also show that security is a key concern that must be addressed, that the platform must make the technologies easy to use, and that it must enable them to be used in combination. The Open Group established the Open Platform 3.0 Forumto address these concerns, and to help organisations cope with the dramatic changes in technology we are currently seeing.”

Open Platform 3.0 is centred around four to six technology trends converging on each other to form new business models and system designs. These include mobility,  social networks and social enterprise,  big data,  cloud computing,  devices, and application architectures. These convergent forces – united by the growing consumerisation of technology and the resulting evolution in user behaviour – offer the potential to create new business models and system designs.