Detecting a Red Shift in Enterprise Software Development

ATLANTA, Oct. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Red Shift is an astronomical phenomenon indicating a rapidly expanding universe.  It also describes the current enterprise software shift from internal productivity enhancements to rapidly expanding revenue opportunities.  A recent survey of 450 technology leaders indicates that only 46% of custom software is now focused on internal efficiency and effectiveness while 54% is aligned to enhance customer experience and deliver revenue through commercialized software.  While this shift is significant, challenges face every organization trying to conquer this technology frontier.

Cloud computing capabilities can enable organizations to make this shift.  Specifically, the increase in both public and private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions accelerates custom application development and simplifies access to critical resources.  Our survey indicates that private PaaS continues to have increased interest within the enterprise with 34% percent of organizations already implementing or evaluating private PaaS solutions while only 12% of organizations are not interested in private PaaS.

This level of interest has led to a number of existing and new vendors entering not only the PaaS market but across the cloud computing industry.  In the private PaaS landscape, 3 products have emerged with the vast majority of mindshare amongst enterprises – Apprenda with 27%, Pivotal CF/Cloud Foundry with 31%, and RedHat OpenShift with 56%.  This rapidly evolving market creates challenges for many organizations to maintain awareness of many innovative solutions delivering enhanced capabilities.  As another example, only 28% of cloud leaders were familiar with Docker, despite generating over 50 news articles in the past three weeks. These findings highlight that many organizations continue to have a limited view of emerging capabilities that can significantly accelerate business value.

Organizational alignment provides more surprising evidence for the Enterprise Software Development Red Shift.  60% of surveyed organizations indicate having a dedicated team responsible for exploring and testing cloud solutions, indicating an enhanced level of enterprise commitment.

This survey indicates significant enterprise activity to implement enabling cloud technologies.  As organizations seek to leverage these current solutions to drive competitive advantage, technology platforms will evolve into new capabilities that will shape the future business landscape.  In the coming weeks, 2THEDGE will be conducting collaborative research with enterprises to advance their current cloud computing capabilities, identify emerging opportunities, and explore the implications from technologies over the horizon.  The result will be a series of research focused on pragmatic recommendations and lessons learned.  To participate in this effort, contact [email protected] for eligibility requirements. 

About:  2THEDGE (www.2THEDGE.com) is an Innovation and Emerging Technology focused consultancy that enables organizations to go beyond simple emerging technology INSIGHTS by accelerating ACTIONS that deliver decisive OUTCOMES.  Located across North America, 2THEDGE consists of innovation experts from multiple industries with relevant emerging technology expertise and pragmatic industry perspectives to accelerate our organization's technology experimentation, implementation and adoption activities. 

SOURCE 2THEDGE