Ben Galbraith's Blog

Commoditization of Basic IT Infrastructure is a Bad Thing?

I feel like I'm swimming upstream against a tide of derision from my peers, but unlike so many who disagreed with Jonathan Schwartz's recent article/editorial/advertisement on JDJ, I think what Jonathan said makes a lot of sense.

What company in the world wants to invest time and money in creating custom, one-off IT systems which are completely orthogonal to its core business efforts? The status quo of middleware is a hellish reality of integration tears and custom development nightmares.

I believe that Sun's vision of providing turnkey solutions to solve the basic business IT needs in a single, aggresively-priced solution is right on target with what today's IT organizations want.

I'd like to rebut some of the opinions expressed in opposition to Sun's strategy that I've read today:

1. Sun is marginalizing J2EE. This misses the point entirely. Of course these standard services would be built on J2EE. Of course businesses will continue to use J2EE for those things that actually generate revenue. Will some programmers be out of work if standard IT infrastructure components gradually become commoditized and (gasp!) easy to configure and use? Probably. Will new jobs open up as more capital is freed to invest in revenue-generating projects? Yep. That's how the economy works, folks. Wouldn't you rather work on the sexier projects anyway?

2. Jonathan Schwartz (and Sun) should get out in the real world and find out what companies really want. Ignoring that Sun execs spend a shocking amount of time flying around the world doing just that, is the average developer so out of touch with reality that they think their company actually wants to spend a ton of money developing and upgrading custom IT plumbing? Integrating product A with product B? Hiring high priced consultants to figure out how to wire application C and application D? CIOs (and their bosses) the world over want to spend less on IT plumbing, and more on product development.

3. Another fadish attempt by Sun to save themselves from irrelevancy. Maybe, but give the company a chance to dust itself off and execute a new strategy after a hard post-bubble fall. Their strategy (make IT simple) is pretty consistent across hardware/software product lines, and sounds pretty compelling to the corporate world.

As a Director of Technology responsible for both the software development efforts that are the company's lifeblood as well as supporting our IT infrastructure, I can tell you where I'd rather spend my budget and manpower -- and its not on IT plumbing.

Some may think that Sun is on some kind of quixotic crusade and won't be able to execute on this vision. I don't know; wasn't too long ago Sun was on most folks' A-list. It's become fashionable to bash Sun. I know they've muddled through some misguided strategies in the past, but I say, give them a chance on this one.

Comments

• Out the frying pan...
  I think we'll just move from integrating middleware to integrating services. It may be a step forward, but I can see just as many if not more opportunities for semantic incompatibility, performance problems etc

  Posted by: c_armstrong on February 11, 2004 at 06:45 AM

• It's not that he's wrong...
  It's not that Mr. Schwartz is wrong. IT is expensive, and we probably could--and need to--find ways to reduce the cost. And from a developer perspective, it would be more interesting to build compelling applications instead of "plumping". Personally, I'd much rather work on a product that could be sold to multiple customers than develop one-offs, so I should hope that you and Schwartz are right.

  There's two problems with the "article". The first it that it's a thinly veiled press release/sales pitch masquerading as a cover story. And the second is that we've heard this all before. The industry sales pitches go through cycles. On moment, we're hearing that commercial off-the-shelf components are all we need; no customization required. Then middleware is being pitched to integrate all these disparate components. Then we're told that we should buy all from one vendor to avoid having to integrate (what has been Microsoft's M.O., and is now Sun's pitch). Then we're told to avoid vendor lock-in by buying some middleware product to tie everything together...ad infinitum. Fortunately, the cycles are long enough, and CTOs memories short enough, that vendors are able to market the same silicon snake oil over and over.

  My message to Mr. Schwartz: Show me, don't tell me.

  Posted by: jimothy on February 11, 2004 at 07:25 AM

• It's not that he's wrong...
  Certainly agree that the article raises some issues about JDJ, but I'll let Alan Williamson et al respond on that count. I'm responding to those who have retorted that the content of the piece is off-base -- and they are many.

  As you say, we have heard elements of this strategy before. As an interesting sidebar, one example, Microsoft's so-called zero administration, is at least partly responsible for the virus mess we find ourselves in today by perpetuating the notion that companies can buy a Windows 2000 Server, turn it on, and forget about it. Whoops -- they got that one wrong. And of course, Oracle tried a remarkably similiar strategy to Sun's a while back, trying to get folks to buy their app server stack, claiming all kinds of synergies once the DB and app server and other corporate apps came from the same vendor. I know a few folks who bought that line, and wound up with some failed deployments and more than a few bruises.

  So you're right to take a "wait-and-see" approach; I'm in the same boat. My point is that, apparently unlike so many others, I *like* what I'm hearing, and I hope Sun is successful in providing a low-cost desktop and a low-cost suite of commoditized, robust J2EE-based enterprise offerings.

  Posted by: javaben on February 11, 2004 at 08:40 AM

• It's not that he's wrong...
  I like it, too. I'm just skeptical that Sun (or anyone) can deliver. But, gosh, I'd love to be proven wrong.

  Posted by: jimothy on February 11, 2004 at 09:22 AM

• Commoditizing IT infrastructure? In this lifetime?
  Ben, Ben, Ben... You've been staying awake at too many CTO keynotes. I will grant you the fact that the concept of infrastructure computing would be a good idea, but like a lot of good ideas, it won't survive first contact with marketing types.

  First of all, other than the technologies that are already are or becoming commoditized (DB's, App Servers, O/R Mappers, IDE, etc), what else do you propose should be commoditized? Once you get beyond these relatively "generic" services what is left? Software technology that is increasingly intertwined with the bottom line of the company.

  Case and point - call center software. If your business is taking support calls, do you really want to be using the same knowledge base software as the next guy, when the accurate delivery of knowledge is your bread and butter?

  Second point. Again, assuming that commoditizing IT infrastructure is a good thing, who do you want building this stuff? Personally speaking, there isn't that many developers out there I would trust with a "Hello World" app, let alone something critical to the bottom line of my business.

  Infrastructure built right is a good thing (CVS, anyone?), but if it is not built right you end up with just another blip on the Standish survey.

  As far as Sun is concerned, I personally think that they are on the right track. Their recent track record with software products has been less than stellar, but I'm liking the JavaDesktop / Star Office strategy. Compared to any other OS / standard office suite Sun has them beat hands down.

  Jonathan House

  Posted by: jonathanhouse on February 12, 2004 at 09:40 PM

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