| Hybrids in Our Future? |
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| Written by Scott Koegler | |
| Monday, 07 July 2008 | |
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After the UConnect conference last month, I started thinking about how convoluted our business has become. A year ago, I would have bet on the complete takeover of EDI by remote installations of software systems, as in SaaS. But as with most everything in the computing world (and in the business world) nothing changes completely. What I saw, and continue to hear about, is the combination of a variety of components that make what used to be a monolithic (read as 'single vendor') solution, more of an open integration project. In many ways, this follows the "mashup" trend, where developers are able to access necessary areas of applications, in order to create unanticipated, but highly functional products. From the user perspective, this means increased flexibility, and faster solutions to gnarly problems. In many ways, this is simply an update to an old story. Think about how XML was going to replace EDI because it was so much better, faster, easier, more flexible, etc. As many of you have told me, that change-over has never happened. What has happened, is that XML has become the preferred solution inside the firewall, as middleware, moving EDI data to and from your ERP systems. What a great way to leverage technology! I expect to be hearing about and seeing more in regard to these combinations of best of breed products, regardless of their development heritage, over the next few months. I'm also very interested in knowing what examples you might have in the works. |