Gervas Douglas
2013-01-02 19:20:27 UTC
ZapThinks 2012 Retrospective and Predictions for 2013
Document ID: | Document Type: ZapFlash
By: /Jason Bloomberg/ | Posted: /January 2, 2013/
Welcome to the twelfth yes, the twelfth! annual installment of
ZapThinks annual retrospective and predictions for the coming year.
Since we started the trend with our 2003 predictions and 2002
retrospective ZapFlash
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqymanawsyeapauwyazambmuu/click.php>, we have
taken a different tack than most IT prognosticators in that we actually
grade ourselves on our predictions from the previous year, for better or
worse. Last year we scored ourselves 2.5 out of 3, even going so far as
to predict Amazons 2011 crash. Predictions for 2012? Not so good. But
regardless of how well our guesses turned out, the result still makes
for a story worth telling.
*Our Results from Last Year*
We made three predictions for 2012
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqyjaaawsyeaaauwyalambmuu/click.php> in last
years ZapFlash:
*/Future First steals thunder from the Cloud/* We expected a shift in
the US governments attention away from Cloud Computing and the FedRAMP
initiative to Federal CIO Steven VanRoekels
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqybafawsyeakauwyafambmuu/click.php> Future First
initiative, which combined Cloud, lean approaches, Agile, and open
source. Were awarding ourselves a score of 75% on this one. Yes,
FedRAMP has become more time-consuming and bureaucratic as we predicted,
and the government is moving forward with notable Agile successes
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqyhacawsyeapauwyaiambmuu/click.php> as well as
greater open source efforts. But unfortunately, the Future First
moniker has not caught the excitement of the government or the public
the way we had hoped it would.
*/HTML 5 becomes the glue of the ZapThink 2020 vision/* Well give
ourselves half a point on this one. Yes, according to the W3C, HTML 5 is
now feature complete: an important milestone on the road to becoming a
fully ratified standard. But that doesnt mean its far enough along for
broad adoption, or that it contains all the features everybody wants
from it. Mobile phone developers are still more likely to code within
the native environments on their respective devices, citing HTML 5
compatibility and performance issues. And then theres all the work
going into HTML 5.1. Yes, maybe HTML 5 will be the glue someday, but the
glue is far from dry.
*/The rise of RESTful BPM/* We hedged our bets on this one, pointing
out that all 2012 would bring on this topic would be increased buzz. But
in all fairness, we missed the target on this one. We couldnt identify
any buzz around Business Process Management (BPM) at all in 2012,
RESTful or otherwise. Perhaps our timing was off, but there are no
indications that RESTful BPM will be a hot topic in 2013 either.
*Predictions for 2013*
Youd think after awarding ourselves a dismal 1.25 out of 3, wed make
some safer predictions for 2013. Well, thats not the ZapThink way.
Here, then, are our prognostications for the coming year.
*/Cloudwashing reaches a level of desperation/* Vendors all-to-common
practice of using the Cloud label on their products or services
regardless of whether what theyre offering has anything to do with the
Cloud, aka /Cloudwashing/, is nothing new. But we predict that in 2013,
Cloudwashing will reach a fevered pitch, as many vendors finally realize
that they simply cannot leverage the Cloud cost-effectively in their
product strategies. After all, Cloud Computing is inherently threatening
to traditional vendors, as it enables customers to avoid purchasing
their products altogether. Expect to hear louder, more extreme
condemnations of Public Clouds, more detailed and elaborate Cloudwashing
obfuscations of product features, and perhaps a few spectacular vendor
flameouts.
There is also a serious risk that the Cloudwashers will win this battle.
Just as the middleware vendors won the SOA battle, turning an
architectural approach into a set of ESB features, Cloud vendors may
wreak the same havoc with the Cloud. Heres how you can tell if a vendor
is trying to pull the wool over your eyes: cross out the word Cloud in
their marketing and write in either Web or virtualized data center.
If their marketing ends up saying essentially the same thing as it did
when it was Cloudwashed, you know theyre trying to fool you. Be warned!
*/Next generation SOA begins to coalesce/* For years, ZapThink has
touted the difference between the practice of SOA and purported
implementations of SOA. Our mantra has always been that SOA is protocol
and technology independent: it doesnt require Web Services, or ESBs, or
any of the heavyweight IT infrastructure that has given SOA its
reputation of complexity and failure. With the rise of Cloud Computing,
architects are increasingly realizing that the bits and pieces of SOA
best practice loose coupling, intermediary-based abstraction, and
automated governance, to name a few can and should be applied as
appropriate, independent of the existence of any specific, funded SOA
effort.
In 2013, we predict that these miscellaneous patterns and practices will
gradually coalesce into a kind of post-SOA architectural approach.
Yes, it will still center on achieving greater levels of business
agility in the context of heterogeneous resources, but this
next-generation architecture ZapThink calls /Agile Architecture/ goes
beyond middleware-centric legacy enablement, leveraging
hypermedia-driven, Cloud based approaches for achieving agility in the
enterprise. In fact, its no mistake that this next generation approach
is at the core of our new book, /The Agile Architecture Revolution/
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqywalawsyeavauwyafambmuu/click.php>, coming out
in the spring.
*/Cyber-9/11 /*Finally, a prediction we sincerely hope does not come
to pass. We predict some kind of Cyberattack so remarkable
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqyqarawsyeazauwyalambmuu/click.php>, so
damaging, that it forever changes the way the world looks at the ongoing
Cyberwar. Just as 9/11 changed our world forever, the attack we predict
will have the same kind of psychological impact. You may not believe
were in the midst of a Cyberwar now, but after the Cyber-9/11, no one
will have any remaining doubts.
*The ZapThink Take*
The common theme across our three predictions is some kind of conflict
between two opposing forces. We have the dinosaur software vendors
struggling to maintain relevance vs. the new world of the Cloud. Theres
old guard SOA, mired in the complexity of middleware and Web Services,
vs. lightweight, hypermedia-driven, Cloud-friendly approaches to
achieving greater agility via loose coupling. And theres the world
before the Cyber-9/11, where people dont even realize theyre fighting
a Cyberwar, vs. post-Cyber-9/11, where the rules of Cyberspace suddenly
and dramatically rewrite themselves.
Fundamentally, this dichotomy is between the old way of doing things:
slow, expensive, and inflexible, vs. the new way: agile, lightweight,
and Web-centric. This dichotomy plays itself out in enterprises across
the world. Its one aspect of the perennial battle between siloed,
bureaucratic organizations that lead to redundant legacy environments
and architecture-driven organizations that can innovate even as they
grow. The bureaucracies are the incumbents, the innovators are the
challengers. Will 2013 be the year the advantage shifts to the
innovators? Only time will tell.
Document ID: | Document Type: ZapFlash
By: /Jason Bloomberg/ | Posted: /January 2, 2013/
Welcome to the twelfth yes, the twelfth! annual installment of
ZapThinks annual retrospective and predictions for the coming year.
Since we started the trend with our 2003 predictions and 2002
retrospective ZapFlash
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqymanawsyeapauwyazambmuu/click.php>, we have
taken a different tack than most IT prognosticators in that we actually
grade ourselves on our predictions from the previous year, for better or
worse. Last year we scored ourselves 2.5 out of 3, even going so far as
to predict Amazons 2011 crash. Predictions for 2012? Not so good. But
regardless of how well our guesses turned out, the result still makes
for a story worth telling.
*Our Results from Last Year*
We made three predictions for 2012
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqyjaaawsyeaaauwyalambmuu/click.php> in last
years ZapFlash:
*/Future First steals thunder from the Cloud/* We expected a shift in
the US governments attention away from Cloud Computing and the FedRAMP
initiative to Federal CIO Steven VanRoekels
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqybafawsyeakauwyafambmuu/click.php> Future First
initiative, which combined Cloud, lean approaches, Agile, and open
source. Were awarding ourselves a score of 75% on this one. Yes,
FedRAMP has become more time-consuming and bureaucratic as we predicted,
and the government is moving forward with notable Agile successes
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqyhacawsyeapauwyaiambmuu/click.php> as well as
greater open source efforts. But unfortunately, the Future First
moniker has not caught the excitement of the government or the public
the way we had hoped it would.
*/HTML 5 becomes the glue of the ZapThink 2020 vision/* Well give
ourselves half a point on this one. Yes, according to the W3C, HTML 5 is
now feature complete: an important milestone on the road to becoming a
fully ratified standard. But that doesnt mean its far enough along for
broad adoption, or that it contains all the features everybody wants
from it. Mobile phone developers are still more likely to code within
the native environments on their respective devices, citing HTML 5
compatibility and performance issues. And then theres all the work
going into HTML 5.1. Yes, maybe HTML 5 will be the glue someday, but the
glue is far from dry.
*/The rise of RESTful BPM/* We hedged our bets on this one, pointing
out that all 2012 would bring on this topic would be increased buzz. But
in all fairness, we missed the target on this one. We couldnt identify
any buzz around Business Process Management (BPM) at all in 2012,
RESTful or otherwise. Perhaps our timing was off, but there are no
indications that RESTful BPM will be a hot topic in 2013 either.
*Predictions for 2013*
Youd think after awarding ourselves a dismal 1.25 out of 3, wed make
some safer predictions for 2013. Well, thats not the ZapThink way.
Here, then, are our prognostications for the coming year.
*/Cloudwashing reaches a level of desperation/* Vendors all-to-common
practice of using the Cloud label on their products or services
regardless of whether what theyre offering has anything to do with the
Cloud, aka /Cloudwashing/, is nothing new. But we predict that in 2013,
Cloudwashing will reach a fevered pitch, as many vendors finally realize
that they simply cannot leverage the Cloud cost-effectively in their
product strategies. After all, Cloud Computing is inherently threatening
to traditional vendors, as it enables customers to avoid purchasing
their products altogether. Expect to hear louder, more extreme
condemnations of Public Clouds, more detailed and elaborate Cloudwashing
obfuscations of product features, and perhaps a few spectacular vendor
flameouts.
There is also a serious risk that the Cloudwashers will win this battle.
Just as the middleware vendors won the SOA battle, turning an
architectural approach into a set of ESB features, Cloud vendors may
wreak the same havoc with the Cloud. Heres how you can tell if a vendor
is trying to pull the wool over your eyes: cross out the word Cloud in
their marketing and write in either Web or virtualized data center.
If their marketing ends up saying essentially the same thing as it did
when it was Cloudwashed, you know theyre trying to fool you. Be warned!
*/Next generation SOA begins to coalesce/* For years, ZapThink has
touted the difference between the practice of SOA and purported
implementations of SOA. Our mantra has always been that SOA is protocol
and technology independent: it doesnt require Web Services, or ESBs, or
any of the heavyweight IT infrastructure that has given SOA its
reputation of complexity and failure. With the rise of Cloud Computing,
architects are increasingly realizing that the bits and pieces of SOA
best practice loose coupling, intermediary-based abstraction, and
automated governance, to name a few can and should be applied as
appropriate, independent of the existence of any specific, funded SOA
effort.
In 2013, we predict that these miscellaneous patterns and practices will
gradually coalesce into a kind of post-SOA architectural approach.
Yes, it will still center on achieving greater levels of business
agility in the context of heterogeneous resources, but this
next-generation architecture ZapThink calls /Agile Architecture/ goes
beyond middleware-centric legacy enablement, leveraging
hypermedia-driven, Cloud based approaches for achieving agility in the
enterprise. In fact, its no mistake that this next generation approach
is at the core of our new book, /The Agile Architecture Revolution/
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqywalawsyeavauwyafambmuu/click.php>, coming out
in the spring.
*/Cyber-9/11 /*Finally, a prediction we sincerely hope does not come
to pass. We predict some kind of Cyberattack so remarkable
<http://t.ymlp240.net/euqyqarawsyeazauwyalambmuu/click.php>, so
damaging, that it forever changes the way the world looks at the ongoing
Cyberwar. Just as 9/11 changed our world forever, the attack we predict
will have the same kind of psychological impact. You may not believe
were in the midst of a Cyberwar now, but after the Cyber-9/11, no one
will have any remaining doubts.
*The ZapThink Take*
The common theme across our three predictions is some kind of conflict
between two opposing forces. We have the dinosaur software vendors
struggling to maintain relevance vs. the new world of the Cloud. Theres
old guard SOA, mired in the complexity of middleware and Web Services,
vs. lightweight, hypermedia-driven, Cloud-friendly approaches to
achieving greater agility via loose coupling. And theres the world
before the Cyber-9/11, where people dont even realize theyre fighting
a Cyberwar, vs. post-Cyber-9/11, where the rules of Cyberspace suddenly
and dramatically rewrite themselves.
Fundamentally, this dichotomy is between the old way of doing things:
slow, expensive, and inflexible, vs. the new way: agile, lightweight,
and Web-centric. This dichotomy plays itself out in enterprises across
the world. Its one aspect of the perennial battle between siloed,
bureaucratic organizations that lead to redundant legacy environments
and architecture-driven organizations that can innovate even as they
grow. The bureaucracies are the incumbents, the innovators are the
challengers. Will 2013 be the year the advantage shifts to the
innovators? Only time will tell.